The Battle for Baiardo

Chapter 1

Juliet gazed out of the window and wondered what she was doing, barely three weeks after her mother's funeral, travelling through the mountains of northern Italy. The big blue bus took the narrow, winding road at a stately pace; every few minutes it stopped to let cars pass. Below, the city of San Remo stretched out like a ribbon along the coast; above loomed dark green forest and dry stone walls. Juliet decided that she'd made a huge mistake.

She knew little about Baiardo, her destination, except that it was home to an art school and had a population of around three hundred. The images on the internet looked pretty but she’d worked on enough tourism brochures and websites to know that a picture paints a thousand lies. 

Juliet’s best friend Zellie had convinced her that a complete change of scene would do her good and help her to ‘get her groove back’ – one of Zellie's favourite expressions. So she had been talked into volunteering at an art school in this tiny Italian village; Zellie had discovered the school on the net. As a volunteer, Juliet would put in a few hours a day of light duties in return for bed and board; she'd get to meet the locals and have a chance to see if the Italian lessons she’d taken in the last year, mainly to keep her brain active, had been any good. She could even join in some of the art classes (definitely) and model for life-drawing classes (maybe). The plan was to move her into a totally new 'head space' (another Zellie expression), take her far away from her everyday life and figure out what the next phase would be. ‘Endings are beginnings,’ Zellie had assured her. 

The last months had been gut-wrenching: her mother had suffered so much that Juliet had felt an overwhelming sense of relief when she finally passed away. Remorse for the relief followed, then grief, then worst of all a strange sense of emptiness. All these emotions were replaced by shock at the reading of her mother's will. It stipulated that the house that she had grown up in, the one that her architect father had lovingly restored would belong to Juliet for as long as she chose to live in it. Once sold, if Juliet chose to sell it, the proceeds would be shared equally between herself and her brother Jonathan but until that time it would be hers alone. Now she wondered if the change to the will was an acknowledgement that her mother had understood and appreciated what her daughter had sacrificed, to take care of her for the last four years.

***

 As the bus climbed higher Juliet’s slight sense of apprehension bloomed in to mild panic. Was she, at thirty-four years of age, too old for this kind of thing? Would the other volunteers all be young backpackers? Would she be able to do the work? Would she fit in? What if she didn't get on with the people at the school? Was it too late to back out?

Huge stone walls along the side of the road were emblazoned with graffiti and the graphic artist in her couldn't help reading it. In giant black letters was written, Loredana gran puttana; 'Loredana great slut'. 'Poor Loredana,' she whispered, 'what could she have done to deserve that?' She started to giggle to herself: Oh well, whatever happens over the next month, it's unlikely that anyone will want to immortalise me in lewd graffiti.

The bus took a sharp left off the main road and descended a leafy lane before wending its way upward again to arrive at a bus stop, where it pulled up next to a church. The hodgepodge design made it hard to determine the building's age but Juliet made a guess at early twentieth century. Across from the church was a line of parked cars.

‘For a beginning it’s not very promising’ she murmured. Disappointed but not surprised, Juliet stood up and looked out the window. A very pretty woman of indeterminate age peered anxiously at her through the glass then broke into a wide smile which seemed to say, 'Welcome to Baiardo!'

The smile belonged to Carrie, tall and lithe with lightly tanned skin, short curly grey hair and hazel eyes. Juliet felt herself relax as Carrie helped her with her large, heavy backpack.