Lady of Asolo

by Siobhan Daiko

  I lift my fingers to my nose, and inhale the citrus scent. There’s a washstand in the corner of my room; I pour water from the jug next to it and rinse my hand.

  Zorzo has placed a curtained canopy over the centre of his boat, and I sit inside, mask in place, hidden from the world. My hair is loose under my cape; I didn’t have time to dress it. I keep my head down as he hands me ashore, not fully understanding why I’m here.

  In his studio, I see it; and then I do know. This is what I want: the skill to work such magic on canvas. He has painted a picture of himself, holding a lute and leaning his red-coated back against an oak tree, the dark green transcribed into blackish blue in the thickening darkness of approaching night. Zorzo has placed me on the other side of the scene, propped up on my right elbow, my face turned towards him. My hair is caught in the beam of the half-moon, which is only just visible between two dark-grey clouds. There’s a white space opposite the oak tree, and I point to it. ‘What will go there?’

  ‘Our task for this morning.’

  ‘Our task?’ I dare not hope.

  ‘You’ll help me. ’Tis easy enough. I’ll start and you’ll finish what I’ve started, copying my technique.’

  ‘W . . . w . . . what if I make a mistake?’

  ‘That’s the beauty of oil paint. I’ll go over anything that doesn’t please me. And, in the meantime, you’ll learn. Isn’t that why you’re here?’ he says, winking.

  Heat whooshes to my face. ‘You’re insufferable.’

  ‘If I’m insufferable, then I’m afraid I can’t teach you.’ He smiles. ‘A pupil must respect her master.’

  ‘Oh, you’re my master now, are you?’ I curtsey then giggle, my disquiet forgotten. The light-hearted banter between us is easier to deal with than the tension last night that made the place between my legs throb. Far better. He doesn’t answer me; he’s mixing his paints.

  ‘See how thickly I’ve laid the colour on the crown of the oak tree? We must do the same on this side of the canvas,’ he indicates the white space. ‘There’s a copse here, blackish-blue merging into light blackness to reflect the approaching night.’

  He spreads the paint with a small knife. ‘You know I was a pupil of Giovanni Bellini. But it was my meeting with the great Leonardo da Vinci that changed the way I view art. His use of the sfumato technique was something I wanted to develop according to my own style.’

  ‘Sfumato? What’s that?’

  ‘Where we blur or soften sharp outlines by subtle and gradual blending, some say feathering, of one tone into another, to create a smoke-like haziness.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I can see how you’ve shown the arrival of the night that way. The painting seems to have a sense of movement about it.’

  Zorzo takes my hand in his and transfers his brush into it. Holding my wrist with a delicate touch, he guides my hand across the canvas and my heart dances.

  Although ’tis he who’s doing the painting, my hand is learning from his. I want this to go on forever. Yet, in no time at all, it seems, he’s telling me we need to depart. ‘The daylight hours are better for this type of work,’ he says. ‘Can you escape from your duties to the Queen tomorrow?’

  Doesn’t Zorzo realise she’s a mother hen, and she likes to keep her chicks, as she calls us, close to her? Perhaps I can feign my painful monthlies one more day? ‘I’ll try,’ I say. ‘Call for me at the same time.’

  Back in San Cassiano, I creep into my room. Dorotea is sitting on my mattress, a frown darkening her face. ‘Where have you been?’

  And so I tell her. What else can I do? She’s caught up in what she calls the romance of my assignation, although she warns me that no good will come of this. She doesn’t understand about art. Dorotea can only think of the pleasures of the flesh. ‘Have you done it with him?’

  I smile and do not correct her assumption. Let her believe what she likes.

  The court leaves for Murano, where my lady will stay until tomorrow. As well as entertaining the Marques, the Queen wants to buy glass. I have a day and a night ahead of me to spend as I please. Well, not quite as I please for there are servants here who’ll spy on me. Dorotea has told me I should stuff pillows under my bedcovers so that it will seem as if I am sleeping. And that’s what I do when Zorzo calls.

  In his studio, my hand shakes as it holds the brush. How clumsy I am today. He covers my hand with his and my confidence soars. I can feel his breath against my ear, soft and warm. Turning towards him, I run the tips of my fingers lightly down his cheek. I suck in a gasp and a quiver travels down to my core.

  Zorzo moans, but he does not stop me when I move my hand down his body and encounter his arousal. His eyes hold mine and I feel as if I shall sink into them; liquid gold, they burn with desire. How different he is from the ferrarese. I don’t like to think of that man and banish him from my mind.

  My painter reaches down and unpins my hair (for today I have dressed it properly). He entwines his hands in my tresses, and pulls me against him. ‘Dolcezza, you will be the undoing of me.’

  I lift my mouth to his and our lips meet. The softness makes my insides shiver. We stumble to the bed in the corner of the studio and lower ourselves onto it. Our tongues are dancing and my whole body is on fire. ‘Are you sure, dolcezza?’

  I nod, the decision made. The step I’m taking will alter the course of my life, yet I can’t envisage any other destiny for me than to become one with this man.

  ‘You are a horsewoman,’ he says, lifting his lips from mine. ‘Your maidenhead will have been stretched. Even so, I shall enter you slowly so you do not feel too much pain.’

  For a second I am perplexed. Our gaze locks and his eyes burn with such love that I know this can’t be wrong. Whatever the church says, we aren’t sinners. There’s no need for us to speak the words. There will be time for that later. He lifts my gown and I let out a small cry as he pushes gently into me, my figa resisting only momentarily. ’Tis but a twinge and then we rock together and I’m lost to the exquisiteness of the sensation.

  Too soon, ’tis over. Zorzo shudders and withdraws from me, pulling a kerchief from his pocket and covering his prick. ‘You know how babes are made?’ he says. ‘I can’t spill my seed inside you or we shall have a child. The next time we make love, you will know the pleasure I’ve just experienced, dolcezza. Just give me some moments to regain my strength.’

  He gets up from the bed and goes to the sideboard where there’s a flagon of wine. We drink and nibble biscotti, then wash, then take our time over lovemaking. I had no idea that a man could make a woman writhe the way I’m doing. Have I no shame? I’m lying naked with my legs apart and my lover’s hand is doing such things to me that my whole body is trembling.

  On the brink of that joy, like the one I felt the other night, about to reach the end of a blissful journey that has built and built, Zorzo stops. ‘I want to be inside you when you come. It will be stronger for you.’

  And he is right. Pleasuring myself can’t be compared with what is happening now. He thrusts into me and I arch against him. Arching and rubbing myself against him until a spark inside me grows into a flame of such exquisiteness that I’m completely lost to it.

  Fern shuddered awake, her nightdress hot against her skin. She staggered into the bathroom, switched on the light, and caught her reflection: her skin was flushed from the orgasm. The most earth-shatteringly amazing orgasm. She used the loo, climbed back into bed, and curled in on herself. The guilt was back, rolling through her, tinging her light with darkness. She turned her head. Oh, my God! On the bedside table. Caught in a beam of moonlight. The piece of burnt wood.

  A voice whispered, ‘Lorenza . . ..’

  Fern screamed.

  12

  Luca met Fern at the Caffè Centrale, about half an hour before the rehearsal. He pulled out a chair for her, and asked what she’d like to drink.

  ‘Just a fizzy water, please. I need to keep my head clear for the dancing.’

  ‘How did you get on yesterda
y?’

  She spoke about her trip to Murano, the opera, and her dream of Cecilia’s visit to Zorzo. When Fern mentioned they’d been intimate, she flushed bright red. ‘I’ll spare you the details,’ she said. Then she told him that she’d woken her aunt by screaming at the sight of the piece of burnt wood and upon hearing the ghostly whisper.

  Bloody hell! ‘What happened next?’

  ‘Well, of course the wood disappeared. Aunt Susan thinks I’ve completely lost my marbles again and wants me to see a doctor. I told her in no uncertain terms that I wouldn’t. Such a shock, though, to see it there in Venice. I thought the fire was associated with the Barco, but now I don’t know what to think.’

  Luca scratched his head. ‘Parts of Venice were always going up in flames in the Middle Ages. Most of the houses and bridges were made of wood then.’

  ‘I know that’s why they moved the glassblowing furnaces out to Murano.’ Fern gazed across the tables towards the fountain in the centre of the square. ‘Pity we can’t find out more about Giorgione’s life. For instance, if he married. That book I bought at the Accademia was mostly about his paintings.’

  ‘There aren’t any records of a marriage, as far as I’m aware. Just rumours of him being a lover of women.’

  Fern frowned. ‘Oh.’

  Was that a jealous “oh” he’d heard? The green-eyed monster was nibbling at him too. Pazzesco to feel jealous of a long-dead rival. Rival? The notion was totally insane.

  Luca glanced up. Chiara and Federico were pushing their way between the tables.

  Chiara lowered herself down, a sulky expression on her face. ‘I’m not in the mood for this. Renaissance dancing isn’t really my thing.’

  ‘How will you know until you’ve tried it?’

  ‘I’m sure it will be quite amusing,’ Federico said. He’d sat next to Fern, and was staring at her in a way that made Luca’s blood boil. ‘Have we got time for a coffee?’

  Luca signalled the waiter and ordered espressos for Federico and his sister. An awkward silence. Chiara was staring at her feet. Her boyfriend was eying Fern as if she were a piece of cake he’d like to devour, and Fern was looking as if she wished the ground would swallow her up.

  ‘Let me get these,’ Fern said, reaching for her purse when Federico and Chiara had finished their coffees. Before Luca could say anything, she was marching towards the bar.

  ‘So you let a lady pay,’ Federico smirked.

  ‘The lady insists. Times are changing.’

  Federico let out a laugh. ‘Quite right. Your sister pays for both of us when we go out. After all, she has more cash than I do.’

  ‘Money that my mother has given her.’

  ‘Hey! Stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here. That is between Ma and me, Luca. Just butt out!’

  Fern came up to the table, smiling. ‘I’m quite looking forward to this.’ And it was as if oil had been poured over choppy waters. The atmosphere changed and both Federico and Chiara smiled back at her. ‘I’m looking forward to it too,’ Federico said in a smarmy tone.

  ***

  A noisy group of people had congregated in the sunken area below the inner castle walls. The Mayor of Asolo, a tall young man with dark hair and bushy eyebrows, was speaking into a megaphone, barking out instructions about who should go where and do what. Luca held Fern’s hand. She in turn held Federico’s and he held Chiara’s. Her hand was then taken by the Mayor as they joined in the circle of dancers.

  The steps weren’t difficult. One, two, three in one direction, a turn on the heel and one, two, three the opposite way. Let go hands, face out of the circle, and join hands again. Six steps, let go, and swivel to face inwards again. Lift upheld hands and come together in the centre, then move back out to full circle. Into the middle, and once there, drop hands, twirl around, make a wider circle. Steps to the right, steps to the left, more twirls. Smaller circle with right hand held inwards, to form something like the spokes of a wheel. Turn and do the same with left hand. And so on and so forth.

  The moves seemed to come easily to Fern; she seemed as if she could have done the dance in her sleep. Luca knew what he was doing, having been part of the re-enactment before, but Federico and Chiara were struggling, getting the sequence of steps wrong and bumping into people. Federico whispered something into Chiara’s ear, and they left the circle, which performed much better without them.

  When he and Fern had rehearsed the dance twice, they joined Chiara and Federico then progressed to the café where he and Fern had sat together the first day he’d met her. ‘Beers all round?’ Luca suggested.

  ‘Count us out,’ Chiara said. ‘We’re off. This is not our sort of scene.’ She glanced at Fern. ‘Remember you promised to come for a ride with me?’

  Luca gave Fern what he hoped was an encouraging look. She responded with a nod. ‘When?’

  ‘How about tomorrow afternoon? Say four o’clock? You’ll enjoy it, I promise.’

  ‘Lovely,’ Fern said. ‘I’ll be there. Thanks.’

  Luca watched his sister and her boyfriend move off between the tables, their arms around each other. He shot a glance at Fern. ‘Are you up for a bit of espionage?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We have to be quick or we’ll lose them,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Those beers will have to wait.’

  He led Fern down the road to the car park. ‘Federico’s old Lancia is unmistakable for its colour. Bright green.’ He pointed. ‘Thankfully they’re too absorbed in each other to notice us, and we’ll have to keep well behind them or there’ll be hell to pay.’

  ‘Where do you think they’re going?’

  ‘God knows, but you can bet your bottom dollar it won’t be somewhere they should be.’

  The bright green Lancia left Asolo, taking the road past the hospital. Luca made sure there were at least two cars between them. At the tee junction, Federico turned right, then right again towards the hills. Luca kept his distance and, when the Lancia stopped at a sleepy hamlet up ahead, he pulled in at the side of the road. Porco cane! Federico and Chiara had jumped out of their car, and were daubing paint on a sign at the side of the road.

  Luca whispered to Fern, ‘This could be the start of a slippery slope for my sister.’

  He felt a touch on his arm and turned towards Fern. Her face was a portrait of sympathy and his heart melted. He wanted desperately to take her in his arms. How to get through to her? Caspita! Her fiancé had died nearly two years ago. Surely enough time had gone by for her to have got over his death? Luca turned on the ignition. Chiara and Federico had already gone.

  He pulled up by the road sign, which should have read, “Paderno”. His sister and her boyfriend had daubed out the letter “o”.

  ‘Venetian dialect,’ he said. ‘We leave the vowels off the endings of most Italian words. But we also have our own words for things. For instance, the word for “money” is denaro in Italian, but schèi in Venetian.’

  ‘Gosh!’

  ‘Most people don’t realise that Venetian is a very old language. In fact, Cecilia, like the majority of inhabitants of the Most Serene Republic, would have spoken Venetian.’

  ‘She did, come to think of it. I can understand and speak it when I’m in the past. But if you asked me to translate anything for you now, I wouldn’t have a clue.’

  ‘Our dialect has more history than the national language. It’s closer to French and Spanish than to Italian.’

  ‘Something has just popped into my mind. As Cecilia, I’ve experienced a time when Tuscan was adopted as the language of literature. I suppose because of writers like Petrarch and Dante. And she met Pietro Bembo in Caterina Cornaro’s court. I gather he used Tuscan in his writing. Were there any Venetian writers?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Many. Goldoni followed the Commedia dell’arte tradition of having the common folk speak in Venetian. He’s ranked among the top Italian theatrical authors of all time, and his plays are still performed today. They’re wonderfully funny.’ He paused. �
�You’ve heard of Casanova?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, he translated the Illiad into Venetian. So we have a proud tradition of literature.’

  ‘Can you explain the rationale behind what Chiara and Federico are doing?’

  ‘A significant number of Venetians want to break free of the rest of Italy.’

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  ‘Pride, I suppose. You know we were a republic for over a thousand years? And a leading world power in the 15th and 16th centuries?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t know why it come to an end.’

  ‘It happened in the late 18th century. After a long decline, Napoleon divided the Veneto up between the French and the Austrians. Finally, after Italian unification, we were annexed to Italy.’ He paused.

  ‘Now we’re one of the wealthiest regions, thanks to the economic boom of the last decade. And everyone here hates paying taxes to fund the massive bureaucracy in Rome. Much of the money is channelled into the South of Italy. Supposedly for development, but generally swallowed up in corruption.’

  ‘Do you believe the Veneto will ever become independent again?’

  ‘Not in the foreseeable future. Perhaps, one day, as part of an integrated Europe.’

  ‘A bit like Scotland and Wales in the UK, then, I suppose. It’s strange how we humans like to belong to a particular tribe. We haven’t changed that much since we came out of our caves and populated the planet.’

  ‘In evolutionary terms, we haven’t been out of the caves for that long. Thousands of years compared with millions as cavemen.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that. So Chiara and Federico are simply behaving like their ancestors.’

  ‘I wish it were that simple.’

  Fern touched his arm again. ‘Try not to worry too much about Chiara. She’s young and full of ideals.’

  ‘If it were just Chiara, I’d agree with you. Federico is part of the equation, and there’s something about him that makes my flesh crawl.’