Starling

by Fiona Paul

  After they finished eating, Flavia led the way to the library, where Cass found a printed copy of Homer’s Odyssey. Cass handed her the book, and Flavia flounced down in a chair by the window.

  “I think this might be the largest book I’ve ever held,” she said. “It weighs as much as a full-grown chicken.”

  “Read the beginning aloud to me,” Cass said.

  Flavia licked her finger and turned past the title page. She struggled through the first few paragraphs, stumbling occasionally over an unfamiliar word. Cass helped her along, and after Flavia had read the first couple of pages, Cass instructed the courtesan to set the book down on her lap.

  Then she told Flavia about Odysseus and his journeys, about how the entire time he was away, his wife, Penelope, fought off suitors and waited faithfully for him to return. “Men like to hear stories like that,” Cass said, even though she had no idea if it was true. “They like to think of their women as sitting dutifully by the fire embroidering while they’re out journeying to Palazzo Dolce to visit you.”

  Flavia giggled, her brown eyes lighting up. “And is he faithful to her, as well?”

  “Not exactly,” Cass said. “Though he never stopped loving her.” She scooped the book from Flavia’s lap and skimmed through the pages, folding back an occasional corner to mark the more exciting passages. When she finished, she handed the book back to Flavia and turned her attention to the shelves around them. “Let’s see what else is in this library.”

  Cass went from shelf to shelf, inhaling the scent of ink and parchment. Her fingers stroked the spines as she passed up stories that were either too dark or too complicated for Flavia. It was difficult to choose a book for someone else. Who could say what sort of characters or story would speak intimately to another person? Finally, Cass selected the first quarto of Romeo and Juliet and a recent book of essays by Michel de Montaigne. “These are both favorites of mine you might try.”

  Flavia gathered all three of the books on her lap. Cass was just about to tell her the story of Romeo and Juliet when Octavia breezed into the library.

  “Capricia, lovely,” she started. “Just the girl I was looking for.”

  “Yes?” Cass said.

  “I would like to speak to you about the event tomorrow.”

  Flavia perked up from beneath the stack of books. “The Domacetti party, Signorina Octavia?” she asked. “Is Capricia going? Does that mean I get to go along too?”

  “Both of you may go,” Octavia said. “Santo cielo, I almost didn’t see you there buried beneath that stack.”

  Flavia held up The Odyssey. “Capricia has been helping me with literature,” she said. “A romance, an adventure, and scholarly thoughts. If I learn these, I’ll be able to please many men.”

  “Indeed,” Octavia said, giving Cass a warm smile. “But I’m going to steal away your tutor for a moment. You keep studying, all right?”

  Flavia nodded, and opened the cover of the Michel de Montaigne book.

  Octavia turned to Cass. “I do appreciate your help. One of my most trusted, Seraphina, is available to give you a tour of Palazzo Dolce and teach you a few secrets of the trade.”

  Cass blushed. Secrets of the trade? Did she even want to know what that meant? She followed Octavia down the corridor to the portego, where several of the girls were lying about, two still in their bedclothes. They glanced curiously at Cass.

  “The girls seem to be warming to you,” Octavia murmured, low enough so that only Cass could hear her. “Perhaps you’ll decide you want to stay on here permanently.”

  Cass tried to imagine herself draped over a velvet divan like the girl with silk-straight black hair that hung slightly past her chin. Or like the pale girl dressed in a sheer chemise, the curves of her body displayed for everyone to see as she played a happy tune on a flute. It was Arabella, the girl who had admitted them to the brothel last night, Cass realized.

  Arabella was a skilled flautist. Her notes were crisp and clear, reminding Cass of birdsong, or perhaps the sweet voices of the Sirens from Odysseus’s epic tale. A far cry from any music Cass and her violin had ever made, which had sounded more like cats brawling.

  A fair-skinned woman with hair the color of honey floated into the room in a gossamer gown and veil, both the color of melted butter. She looked a few years older than Cass, but no part of her age detracted from her beauty.

  “There she is.” Octavia signaled the woman in yellow. “Seraphina, this is Capricia.”

  Seraphina curtsied. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Capricia is considering employment with us, but she comes from a noble background.” The way Octavia said noble made it sound like Cass had leprosy or a touch of the plague. “I told her you’d give her a tour of Palazzo Dolce and then maybe teach her a bit about interacting with the men who come here.”

  Seraphina laughed a little bell-like laugh. “I think to call them men is a bit misleading,” she said. “Most of them are just boys who became older yet never grew up.”

  Octavia was pulled away by one of the other girls as Seraphina gestured around the cavernous portego with one gloved hand. “Obviously you’ve seen our portego, where we do some of our public entertaining.” She grinned mischievously. “Have you met the rest of the ladies?” Seraphina rattled off a list of names that Cass promptly forgot. There were so many girls, each of them slightly different in their mannerisms but all gorgeous. And most of them were petite, a full head shorter than Cass. They flitted around the airy room like butterflies or nymphs. Even without her chopines, Cass felt awkward and ungainly around them.

  Arabella played a rare sour note on her flute, and Seraphina made a face. “Come on. The rest of the house awaits us.” She led Cass through the main level, showing her several places Cass had already seen: the sitting room that served as Octavia’s office, the library, the dining room. “The lower level is mainly the kitchen and storage areas,” she said. “We have a girl who cooks for us, but we take turns doing all of the other chores. We clean, we mend, we wash the linens.”

  Cass nodded. “Do you live here?” she asked.

  Seraphina led her up the sloping staircase. “Some of the newer girls do,” she said. “I have my own place a few blocks away.”

  The third floor was made up of a cross-shaped hallway with multiple rooms in each quarter. “The rooms on this side belong to the girls who live here,” Seraphina said. “Those on the other side are where we entertain our guests.”

  “And where I slept, the fourth floor?”

  “Ah, did you sleep up there? Horribly hot, I’d imagine. The top floor has three more rooms. The cook sleeps in one, Flavia—she’s our newest girl—in the second, and the third is usually kept open in case someone like you needs a place.” Seraphina smiled. “There’s not much to see, is there? Let’s go sit in the courtyard so we can breathe the fresh air while we talk.” She ran a hand through her golden tresses. “I’ve been dying for some sunshine so that I might lighten my hair a bit.”

  “But your hair is perfect,” Cass said.

  Seraphina stroked it again. “Do you think so? I like yours too. So rich, like earth, with just a hint of fire.”

  Cass smiled. She had never heard her hair described in such a fashion. She and Seraphina descended to the street level. They passed through the kitchen and then outside into a small courtyard that Palazzo Dolce shared with the palazzo next door to it. There was no elaborate garden as Cass was accustomed to from visiting friends on the Rialto—just a pair of benches facing each other and a circle of rosebushes in need of pruning.

  “We’re supposed to care for the plants too.” Seraphina fanned her face with one hand. “But it looks like we’ve not been doing so well.” She gathered her flowing skirts around her and sat on one of the benches, indicating for Cass to sit across from her. “I know you didn’t come to tour the house or talk about plants, though,” she said
, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Octavia says you can read and discuss poetry. And if you’re indeed noble, then you already know how to dance. So you want to know how to please a man, right? Is that it?” Her green eyes glimmered in the sunlight.

  Cass swallowed hard. She had never heard anyone speak so blatantly about such affairs, though part of her was exceedingly curious. She thought both of Luca and Falco, of the different ways they had touched her.

  “It’s all right,” Seraphina said. “You needn’t be shy here, Capricia.” She paused. “Though some men do love the shy girls.”

  “What else do they love?” Cass asked.

  Seraphina watched a butterfly flit past before continuing. “All right. Here is everything I know that matters. The men who come here want to feel adored. Compliment them, listen to them when they speak, act as if they are the most interesting beings you’ve ever encountered. Men want to feel powerful. Do not speak over them. Let them act as if they are in charge of your time together.” She arched an eyebrow. “Even though, of course, it will always be you who is in charge. Men want to feel desirable. Do things to them. Don’t just lie there and let them do things to you.”

  “Do things?” Cass asked hesitantly.

  Seraphina burst out laughing. “Aren’t you quite the innocent one for having taken a lover who was not your betrothed?”

  Mannaggia. Cass had forgotten all about her alleged infidelities. “What I meant was—”

  Seraphina waved her off. “I’ve seen it before. He’s the one who’s taken a lover, isn’t he? He cast you out because he prefers her, and you’re here trying to learn how to win him back.”

  Cass had no idea how to respond to this, but luckily Seraphina kept talking.

  “You needn’t be embarrassed. If you like, I could find a peasant boy or a street artist who might let us practice on him.” She grinned wickedly. “The young men of Venice do enjoy assisting us in this manner.”

  Cass imagined Seraphina strolling out into the streets of Fondamenta delle Tette and returning with a willing Falco. Was that how he had paid girls’ modeling fees? “No, that’s quite all right,” she said quickly.

  “If you’re scared or unsure, you can always follow their lead,” Seraphina said. “But sometimes they’ve no idea what it is that they want.”

  The back door of Palazzo Dolce creaked open and an old woman with snowy-white hair and a stooped back entered the courtyard. She wore deep burgundy skirts and a velvet hat crowned with a pair of peacock feathers. She walked with a cane, one of her legs moving stiffly beneath her wide skirts.

  Cass rose from her bench to offer the old woman her seat, trying not to stare at her misshapen fingers or the translucent folds of skin that hung from her chin. It was clear from her high cheekbones and delicate frame that she had been beautiful once, but those days were long past. “What a lovely bracelet,” Cass said. The woman was wearing a circle of carved coral adorned with pearl and abalone that bore a striking similarity to one of the bracelets in Agnese’s storage room. The woman’s wrist was so frail that Cass swore she could see every bone in her hand. The iridescent parts of the abalone glinted like miniature rainbows in the sun.

  “Hello, girls,” the woman said, motioning for Cass to sit back down. “This bracelet was a gift from Paolo Veronese. One of my favorite tokens of affection.”

  Paolo Veronese had died when Cass was very young, but he had been a very famous artist, and his works still decorated churches and palazzos around the city. This woman must have been one of the city’s top courtesans to have won his attentions when she was younger.

  “Octavia sent me out here to see how you were getting along,” she continued. “She’d like to speak with you both when you have a moment.” The woman gave Cass a long look, and Cass immediately began to worry that she had somehow been recognized again.

  “Where are my manners?” Seraphina said. “This is Capricia. She’s staying at the palazzo for a day or two, though I’m trying to persuade her to stay on longer.” She turned to Cass. “Rosannah is one of our most experienced courtesans.”

  “Capricia.” The name rolled off Rosannah’s tongue. “Forgive me for staring, but you look a bit like a friend of mine from when I was a girl.”

  “Tell Octavia we’ll come around to visit her in a little while,” Seraphina said.

  Rosannah smiled at the girls before turning back toward the door, revealing a mouth of rotting teeth and gums. She inched her way along the path, one tiny step at a time. Cass watched her slow progress. She couldn’t imagine ever getting that old. The poor woman—a strong breeze might crumble her to dust.

  “Who was that?” Cass asked, once Rosannah was safely out of earshot. “Octavia’s mother?”

  Seraphina snickered. “Not officially. Rosannah is the courtesan of choice for certain men who prefer older women.” She cleared her throat meaningfully. “Much older women.”

  “Really?” Cass asked. “But she’s so . . .”

  “Hideous?” Seraphina offered with a wink. She lowered her voice. “I’ve heard she has a client or two who make her bathe in chilled water so they can pretend she’s a corpse.”

  Cass almost fell off her bench. “That’s horrible. Do you have clients who make you do things like that too?”

  Seraphina shook her head. “One or two have wanted to slap me around a bit, but Octavia always says we don’t have to be with anyone we don’t want.” Seraphina sighed. “Of course it’s always the most wealthy men who want to get a little rough, and I hate to turn them and all their gold away.”

  “So you let them hit you?” Cass asked incredulously.

  “Santo cielo, no,” Seraphina said. “There are a few different tricks that we use. My mother was a courtesan too, and she said a girl from the Orient taught her this. If you run both hands down the sides of a man’s face and find the places under his jaw where you can feel his heartbeat, pressing on both of those areas will cause the blood to stop inside of him, and he will pass out.”

  Cass lifted her own hands to the sides of her neck, feeling for the pulsing of blood beneath her fingers.

  “Don’t do it,” Seraphina said. “It works. I promise you. A couple of the girls here like to do it after they finish entertaining their men so they can steal from their purses, but I do it only when I can’t stand to be around a client any longer.” She tilted her head to the side. “It helps if they’re drunk too. That way they stay unconscious longer and don’t really remember much when they awaken.”

  “And they don’t suspect anything?” Cass asked.

  Seraphina grinned. “Men, they think we are weak. It would never occur to them that a woman could overpower them, with her brain or her hands. And even if it did, they’d never report it. Can you imagine a man going to the rettori with a story of how he was fooled and taken advantage of by a woman?” She laughed a tinkly little laugh.

  For a moment, Cass envied Seraphina, her spirit and her confidence. Being a noblewoman in Venice meant either marriage to a man of your family’s choosing or a life at the convent. The girls at Palazzo Dolce had been born with less, and yet had perhaps carved out a better path—one that gave them, not men or society, the power over their lives.

  It was completely different from everything Cass knew. She had been raised to believe she would remain pure until her wedding night, at which time she would let the husband her parents chose for her do whatever he wished. Cass had never worried about being treated roughly. She knew Luca was kind and decent. She just hadn’t been sure she would ever welcome his advances.

  But at some point that had changed. Madalena had once told her that she would grow to love Luca over time. Was that what was happening? They hadn’t spent that much time together since he had returned to Venice. But somehow his touch, his kisses, they had begun to affect her differently. A fit of anxiety gripped her. Did she do the same for him? Or was he just as beholden to h
is parents’ wishes as she had been to hers? Would he rather spend time with someone like Seraphina?

  “I fear I have overwhelmed you,” Seraphina said. “You look so worried. Things will be fine, Capricia. If you do not win back your betrothed, you will find another match, if you so desire. Shall we go inside and see what Octavia was wanting?”

  Cass nodded. “I was thinking that I wanted to know more of your secrets,” she admitted. “I hope we can speak again like this. I want to . . . understand the right things to do.”

  Seraphina leaned in to give Cass a kiss on the cheek, tucking an unruly shock of Cass’s hair back behind her ear. She let her palm linger on Cass’s jawbone for a second. Cass inhaled the scents of vanilla and rosewater from the courtesan’s skin. She could feel Seraphina’s heart beating through the tips of her fingers. “You need only do what your heart tells you to do,” Seraphina said. “That will be enough for the right man, I promise.”

  “Not until the darkest hour of night does the sun begin to rise.”

  —THE BOOK OF THE ETERNAL ROSE

  eleven

  As she prepared for the party that night, Cass went over her conversation with Seraphina repeatedly, practicing her smile, pretending to hang on an imaginary man’s every word. She still wasn’t sure she could fool anyone into believing she was a courtesan. And worse, she was terrified at the possibility someone might recognize her.

  Forcing herself to remain calm, she went through all of the reasons why it was important for her to go to Palazzo Domacetti: to eavesdrop on anyone who might know the location of the Book of the Eternal Rose, to learn if Dubois was now working with Belladonna, to identify other Order members, and to see if these parties were anything like those thrown at the Palazzo della Notte in Florence. One of Octavia’s courtesans was dead, and a second girl was missing. They routinely attended parties like this one. Octavia had risked being arrested to shelter Cass. If she was unwittingly sending her girls into danger, the least Cass could do was inform her of it.