Chapter Text
It had been several months now that Carlotta had felt disgruntled. Disgruntled about the quality and number of foods available at the market, the inability to hire reliable workers to bring firewood or maintain her home, but most importantly Carlotta was truly sick to the back teeth of her post going awry.
Having only just returned from her cycle tour around the mountain lakes in her small, isolated region of southern Italy, Carlotta was hot, tired and travel-worn. Her bicycle paniers were stuffed to the gunnels with the efforts of her trip, countless watercolour studies of the cloud patterns on lake surfaces, sketches of cottages and fences against the startlingly clear skies found at altitude. Returning home now, she had expected several parcels and packages to be waiting for her. How was she supposed to carry on with her work without supplies? Or food for that matter.
Carlotta had a disdain for the telegraph and much preferred to send her correspondence via traditional, long-winded and irritable letters. She had found over the years that people were much more likely to accede to her demands when forced to receive multiple envelopes with numerous pages of furious script, rather than the sterile, succinct phrases necessitated by the telegram service.
And yet. Entering through her charmingly tumbledown garden gate, trampling up the overgrown path and peering through the heavy curtain of honeysuckle that had rather overtaken the front porch of her home, there was nothing waiting for her.
"Oh, Bloody Hell!" Carlotta swore to the rambling roses and laurel hedges that blocked the view of her quaint italian cottage. The only reply came from the offended caw of a crow that flapped away out of a willow tree behind the house. She rather thought she should go inside and make a cup of tea, that usually made her problems feel smaller and less insurmountable.
Some time later, having put away her bags and organised her travel things for washing or storage, the steam from her tea sluggishly climbing in the warm afternoon air, Carlotta popped out of the back of the cottage to her veranda.
It was the chief reason she had decided to rent the place for the last few years, with its excellent light for painting and drawing, trellises with climbing jasmine and further honeysuckle as well as a grape vine with dangling plump bunches of fruit to provide shade in the heat of the day, but more than any of that, a charmingly beautiful view across the valley of the lovely small town - the terracotta roofs and whitewashed walls gleaming in the late afternoon light, the rich azure sky arching overhead with tiny white clouds scudding by. In the centre was the statuesque campanile, standing protectively next to the church, with the sweet-sounding bell that was ringing at this very moment.
Come to think of it, it was ringing quite continuously. Squinting her eyes into the distance, Carlotta could see no wedding party or festival that might warrant such exuberant bell-ringing. She was soon distracted however, by the reflection of light on the wall from the small pond at the corner of the terrace. For you must understand, Carlotta cared about only a few things in life and foremost among them was capturing the image of the world around her on the page. Her tea grew cold, the shade advanced up the garden and onto the terrace, but Carlotta noticed not the stuttering echo of gunshots across the valley nor the faint smell of smoke on the air.
1SAS had arrived to liberate Italy from fascism and the Second World War, which somehow Carlotta had failed to realise had been happening around her the whole time.