by Roberta Rich
Any affection Cesca might once have had for Foscari had vanished last year in Constantinople when they made their first attempt to spirit Matteo away from Hannah. Foscari blamed the entire fiasco on Cesca. Yet, there had been no reason to denounce her. A true nobleman would have accepted the blame. Foscari had not. She had tried to forget his perfidy, but it kept floating to the surface of her mind like a piece of excrement in a chamber pot.
The Valide, the Sultan’s mother, had ordered them banished. The Sultan’s personal guards, the Janissaries, escorted them to the docks to put them on the first ship leaving port.
Despite this, at Cesca’s suggestion they had hidden month after dreary month in a felt maker’s shack in a tiny village on the Bosphorus until Hannah and Isaac let down their guard, believing their son to be safe. The fault had been Hannah’s. She should have known Cesca would persevere. Matteo’s estate was the largest in the Venetian Republic. Such a prize was worth a few months of eating nothing but sheep’s cheese, lentil soup and flat bread, not to mention enduring Foscari’s unwanted attentions.
Matteo had followed Cesca into the drawing room, and was giggling and racing about, arms outstretched, boots echoing on the floor. What a dear little lamb he could be when Foscari was not around. On the voyage from Constantinople to Venice, he had wept so long and hard for Hannah that Cesca feared he would never be consoled. His hiccupping and the snot dripping from his nose had driven her mad. But once she allowed him to sleep with her in her snug berth aboard the Il Baldone, he had finally settled down.
At the moment, Matteo was spinning his wooden top on the floor, shouting with disappointment when it teetered and fell on its side. His cheeks were flushed from the excitement of the canal ride from Venice and seeing their new dwelling for the first time. Later, after she had explored the villa and grounds, she would coax him to take a nap. But not now. Now she wanted to daydream about her plans to restore the villa to its former splendour. Soon it would be hers to do with as she wished.
“Are you as happy as I am, mi amore?” Cesca asked.
Instead of answering, Matteo put his arms around her waist and nestled against her. Cesca patted his head and ran her fingers through his glossy hair. His little body pressed against hers in a way that was rather agreeable at first but soon grew wearisome. Cesca disentangled herself and sent Matteo out to play, cautioning him not to get too close to the canal.
Cesca took a great lungful of air, and caught the slightly eggy odour of tempera. She lifted her eyes to the west wall of the drawing room—and was unable to believe she had missed seeing this when she had first entered the room. Her mouth fell open and a gasp of amazement escaped her lips.
Frescoes in dusty pinks, in purples and gold and silvery greens, covered the wall from floor to ceiling with scenes of hunting, peasant women knitting and weaving, children unravelling silk cocoons, noblemen gazing with admiration into the eyes of beautiful women. Painted cupids kicked their fat legs and giggled down at her from the ceiling.
Housemaids dangled plump babies; pageboys peered from behind half-opened doors. A mélange of fruits and flowers—tulips, roses, carnations, apples, melons, grapes, oranges—arranged in an overflowing basket balanced on the top of the door jamb. Grapevines trailed down both sides of the door, as tantalizing as a woman’s unbound hair. On the palms of their hands valets proffered trays covered with cakes and savouries. Cesca could almost smell the mince and cinnamon and goose pâté.
Most intriguing of all was the figure of the castellana, the mistress of the villa. She leaned over a balcony, full of bosom and wide of skirt, so artfully painted that for a moment Cesca feared the woman might topple over the railing to her death. Behind the castellana, who wore a green velvet skirt with silk blouse and pearl necklace, stood a wet nurse clasping a gurgling infant. The castellana appeared in command of the household, the sort of mistress capable of dealing with saucy parlour maids and colicky babies but also one who was kind to servants and animals.
Cesca’s mother had once worked as a scullery maid for such a castellana and was full of tales of her efficient domestic management. Cesca must quickly acquire these skills. To seduce a man, all one needed was a wet cunny and a clean bed, but to keep him—and she very much wanted to keep Foscari, at least for the time being—a woman must provide a well-run household.
Cesca skipped and bowed and fluffed her skirts in front of the castellana, picturing new frocks and a house full of servants tripping over one another to do her bidding. Very soon, the villa’s next mistress would appear in Cesca’s own looking glass.
She walked to an open window and fanned her flushed face. Feeling giddy, ears ringing, she dropped to a crouch, her head bent, and hugged her knees, grateful that Foscari, with his arch smile and perfect self-possession, radiating sprezzatura from every pore, was not here to mock her for what he would consider vapid sentimentality. The Marquis possessed impeccably good taste and made instructive, albeit sometimes hurtful, comments on her dress and accent. Without such instruction she could not hope to improve herself. And his connections! He was received in every drawing room in Venice.
Since birth Foscari had had a houseful of servants tending to his every need. As a result, he had not the slightest notion how clean clothes appeared in his dressing room each morning or by what process his muddy boots were transformed into clean, shiny ones. All he saw was Cesca smiling as she held out his waistcoat, brushed and sponged, waiting for him to raise his arms and slip them into the perfectly tailored sleeves. Foscari was as impractical as one would expect of a nobleman. He would be of no help in improving the villa.
From the window leading to the portico, Matteo peeked in, his lips parted, his spinning top hanging by its string, banging against the frame. Then he took flight, racing up and down the portico. His little legs moved so quickly they seemed a blur as he disappeared down the stairs to the front lawn toward the canal.
Cesca stood, straightened her skirts and pinched her cheeks, as she often did to give them colour. The fresh breeze through the window played with the tendrils of her hair. She slowed her breathing, trying to control the frisson of ecstasy that came with knowing the villa would soon be legally hers.
Wonder of wonders, Venetian women were permitted to own land. A friend of her mother’s had put enough money aside from whoring to purchase a bawdy house. The property was registered in the friend’s name and upon her death would devolve to her daughter. The first time Cesca had heard this story she had not believed it, but it was true.
Cesca eased open the doors to the garden, which were set with glass, now mostly broken. The fragility of the substance rendered it so costly that the thought of replacing the doors made her wince. And so did the sight before her. A small grove of olive trees stood unpruned; the row of espaliered orange trees along the fence was overgrown and shapeless. Greenish rainwater filled the nyphaneum, a marvellously huge fountain sizable enough for a dozen nymphs to gambol in, its catch pool surrounded by statues of pagan gods. A barn swallow dared to swoop for a drink then fluttered away. The weeds, the crumbling mortar, the rutted roads, the footpaths littered with human dung from tramps who had evidently camped for weeks on end, were of no importance. The villa would soon be hers and she’d recapture its brilliance.
In truth, Cesca had no greater right to occupy the villa than did a tramp dossing down for the night. Foscari, with his quick wit and clever tongue, had convinced the mayor of San Lorenzo, a man given to drink and the company of whores, both tastes readily satisfied, that Cesca’s occupation of the villa was necessary for the well-being of the little heir. She was not clear why the mayor had power over a property he neither owned nor leased nor rented, simply because it was located within the boundaries of his village, but what did it matter? Cesca had in her pocket a parchment signed by both the mayor and Foscari and impressed with red sealing wax.
Under her ownership, the villa would be transformed into a home where a mother did not sell her daughter’s virtue, where the larder was
always stuffed with freshly baked bread and where she and Matteo, this robust little boy she had become rather fond of, would live together in harmony.
CHAPTER 3
Villa di Padovani,
San Lorenzo, the Veneto
BY THE BLOOD OF THE Holy Mother, let Foscari have triumphed, Cesca prayed, stirring her cooking pot and peering out the window of the summer kitchen. All that was left in the larder were turnips and a hunk of mouldy pecorino, more rind than cheese. The cow she had found wandering in the south pasture was no cow at all, just a wall-eyed ancient creature with caved-in sides, which had not been freshened in years. She grazed along the canal, breaking down the clay embankment with hooves the size of dinner plates. There were no hens and hence no eggs, just a crepe-necked old rooster, which would soon fall under the axe and into the soup pot—if Cesca could find an axe in the stable, a cauldron in the pantry and enough wood to lay a fire in the hearth. But no matter. Under her management, swampland would be drained, tenant farmers would resume paying their rents and the villa would sparkle with fresh whitewash and new glass. The lands would produce again. She would see to that. Soon she would have no need to purchase wine or olive oil or flour. And wasn’t that the very definition of the true aristocrat?
Foscari, for all his faults, was wise in the ways of the world, familiar with courts and judges and nobles and the sophisticated modes of commerce in Venice. He could read and write, and reckon as fast as any Jew moneylender. He knew everyone in the district—even Andrea Palladio, whom Foscari had pronounced the finest architect in the whole of the Veneto.
From the window she watched the Brenta flow gently. To drift along by barge on it was as soothing as being carried in a mother’s arms. The Brenta never acted rudely—never overflowed its banks, flooded houses, carried off people and cows and feather beds and chickens, as did the Tiber River in Rome, where she was born. There were many vessels on the Brenta today—burci loaded with produce; burchielli filled with nobles on their way to their villas; boys in fishing boats, poles upraised. But there was no sign of Foscari’s lean figure in the bow of a vessel, his face turned into the breeze, his eyes impatient for the sight of her. What in God’s name was keeping him?
As Cesca stirred the poultice she was concocting for Foscari—he suffered from gout—she kept her face close to the window. It was always best to keep busy. Idleness left time for worry. Activity would take her mind off what might have happened in Venice. Foscari had been certain the judge would grant the order, but how could one be sure of anything in this world?
A number of luxurious burchielli drifted by, looking like grand floating rooms. The wealthy—she would soon number among them—travelled in barges overloaded with the furnishings for their villas during the spring and summer. In autumn they gathered it all up and returned to Venice. Barges filled with tapestries and carpets and tufted sofas, feather beds, ball gowns, wigs, horsehair mattresses and gilded chairs. A bargeman had told Cesca that nobles travelling along the Brenta made a villeggiatura, a pleasure, of it by staying in villas along the way, attending parties, meeting old friends.
Just when Cesca had given up hope, a canal boat pulled up to the villa’s dock. The captain wrapped the bowline around a mooring cleat on the dock, and Foscari disembarked and started up the untended lawn toward the house. He was favouring his right foot; his gout must be paining him. With a wave of his hand, he bid the stout boatman to carry his four huge valises up the stairs of the portico.
Cesca called to him out the open window. After looking around to see where her voice came from, Foscari limped toward her, his cloak billowing behind him. He had to duck to enter the low-ceilinged kitchen. Then he extended his hands to her so she could tug off his scented gloves—the latest in fashion from Paris—finger by finger, releasing the fragrance of Parma violets. Seeing no dry, uncluttered spot to set down the gloves—the kitchen was filled with cook pots and water casks and sacks of this and that—she handed them back to him. He cradled them in one hand, wary, she assumed, of creasing the fine kid.
She kissed him chastely on both cheeks, eager to hear his news. His silver nose felt warm as it brushed her cheek. He had once told her the tip of his real nose had been sliced off in a duel. But she had long ago discovered he had a perfectly serviceable nose, just that it pleased him to cover it with an engraved masterpiece a silversmith must have charged him dearly for. His silver nose was one of his many affectations. It amused her that smiling made the nose ride up on his face.
When she dropped her arms and stepped back, his face gave her no clue how matters had gone in court. “What a pleasure to see you,” she said. “I am flattered. This must be the first time in your life you have ever been in a kitchen.” How tall Foscari was—in the way all nobles were—thin limbed, loose jointed and confident; the top of Cesca’s head barely grazed his shoulder. The poor were never tall. How could a body grow to any height on stale bread, beans and pork scrapple?
“So lovely to see you, my dove.” He watched as she turned back to stir the brackish mixture before it burned. He swept off his hat—an elegant affair of red felt and pheasant feathers, with three corners and a wide brim—then ran a finger along the back of her neck.
“You have never looked more beautiful, Cesca. Look at the colour in your cheeks! How well you have adjusted to country life. All the cream and fresh sausage these contadini make so admirably has rounded out your figure.”
She faced him. “Bah!” The comment annoyed her. “Anyone can see my dress hangs on me, that the bodice is slack from all the flesh I have lost.”
“Think of the future,” he went on, as though she had not spoken. “What a life of luxury is ahead of you. Soon you, like the ancient Sybarites, will stuff your mattress with rose petals.” He laughed and gave her a pat on the bottom. “Just imagine! You will someday own this villa designed by Palladio, the same genius who designed the church of Il Redentore.”
“Molto gentile, Foscari, thank you. I am glad to see you, too.” Just tell me now—good news or bad? “And you? How did you fare in Venice?” she inquired. Never mind the well-chosen phrases, parola guista, the gracefully constructed sentences. Just spit it out!
“I cannot seem to adapt to the malodorous air of Venice. I felt perpetually ill. I walked around with a handkerchief held to my nose. The city necessitated several variations to my health regime. I found an apothecary who is gifted in compounding various tisanes, elixirs and infusions. I tried them all.” He made a face and pursed his lips. “Some of them very nasty, indeed.”
“Do they help?” Cesca was also skilled at compounding. She had learned from her mother, who was adept at ridding the district of unwanted curs and rats.
He shrugged and tapped her playfully on the cheek with his gloves. “Who can say?”
Cesca smiled up at him, which he took as an invitation to place both hands on her waist, undaunted by the evil, pungent smell of linseed oil. Evidently the slender column of her neck was sufficiently alluring for him to overcome his usual fussiness.
“I must devote a great deal of time to looking after myself. Some men in my position have trading ventures. I have my health regime.”
At any other time Foscari’s remark would have amused her. Now she gave a sigh of impatience. “What do you think of my villa? When I finish heating your poultice, I shall give you a tour.”
“I saw enough, walking from the canal to the house, to know that it is a morass of neglect. No wonder the mayor was delighted to find someone to occupy the place and keep out the vandals.”
“But you must see the stables and the pastures and—”
“I do not need to eat an entire egg to know it is rotten.” He nibbled at her nape. “It would be quite impossible for someone of my sensibilities to live here.”
“I am sorry to hear you say that.” What a relief. Brief visits were fine, even the occasional grappling in bed was tolerable. Anything longer than a few days would be trying.
She did wish the villa and grounds were
in tidier condition, but she had been so preoccupied with feeding herself and Matteo since they arrived two months ago. She and the boy spent a great deal of time foraging in the countryside for berries, roots, an unlucky hen and, once, a rabbit in someone’s snare. There were doves from the dovecote and carp from the canal, but without a few ducats, God help her when winter descended. “Be of good cheer, Foscari. You will feel better once you have rested from your trip.”
“And such an ordeal it was! Three entire days on a leaky boat.”
“Poor darling.” Cesca arched one eyebrow in a way she knew Foscari envied. She had caught him once, practising in a looking glass. But in truth, although she knew herself to be a good actress, sustaining this role of enchantress was difficult when the issue she wanted to talk about was so pressing. If she insisted, Foscari would brush her off with a phrase like “All in good time.” Then he would punish her by making her wait even longer.
Cesca said, “I found it a delightful and relaxing trip, with nothing to do but trail my hand in the water and gaze at the charming sights on both banks of the canal—well-tended villas, grazing cattle, robust gleaners merrily scything the fields. But you are so sensitive and in such delicate health. You could hardly appreciate such things.”
He smiled at her and ran his finger along the ridge of her nose. “Never mind whatever you are stirring in that pot. Make us some tea and then come to the garden.” He started to leave then paused mid-step. “And Matteo? He is well?”
“Healthy as a tick, may the Virgin be blessed. He is napping in his room.”
Foscari hobbled to the portico and down the stairs to the garden behind the villa.
“I shall be out in a moment with our tea and bread and butter,” she called out from the kitchen. The bread had been left to cool by a careless farmer’s wife on her kitchen window, there for the taking, along with a crock of butter.