In the Company of the Courtesan: A Novel

by Sarah Dunant

  But how? If she brought someone home from Tiziano’s, where is her transport? Or his? I tread carefully. I know each step and creaking board on the journey between her room and my own. While I have never spied on her, there are moments when the music of passion contains violent notes within it, and with first-time clients especially it is better to be on one’s guard. But there is nothing in the voices to alarm me now. What am I thinking as I stand here by the door? That I am helping to save her from herself? No. I don’t think that.

  I put my fingers carefully over the handle. It is a rule of the house that there is no lock. Safety over privacy once again. If I am wrong, then I will take the consequences. If I am quiet enough, he—whoever he is—might never know.

  I turn the handle inch by inch until I feel rather than hear it give. The door opens a fraction, then a fraction more. The crack is enough to give me the view I need, for the bed is placed just to the left, its great carved walnut pillars reaching to the ceiling. For the shy there are curtains that can be pulled all around, for there are always a few men who are looking to return to the safety of the womb, both inside and out. But this man tonight does not need them. He is much too intoxicated by the process of growing up.

  The room is lit by two candles, their glow honey, the light they throw dancing into the darkness. Tiziano could not have lit the scene better. The bed is a storm of covers and sheets. My lady is sitting on its edge. He is on his knees at her feet, naked, his arms flung around her waist. The candlelight molds the line of his thighs, his buttocks, and lower back, the skin glistening with sweat, the muscles curved and sinewy, a youthful warrior caught in the fire of perfection. But my lady is not looking at him; she has already had her fill of his perfect beauty. Instead she is folded over him, her body resting on his back, her head down, and her great river of hair splayed over his skin like a cloak. They are utterly still. Flesh on flesh, beauty on beauty. It is a more arresting image than anything Giulio Romano’s lascivious pen might conjure up. For this is not the crude excitement of the act. Rather it is its aftermath, the joyful exhaustion that takes over when the body has gorged itself, when lust and hunger are satiated and you are safe, complete, yourself and yet without self at the same time. It is the instant when lovers feel almost as if they have stopped time with their passion. And anyone who is not inside it is cast into the cold wastes of longing.

  I close the door silently and go back to my room. I wait, turning the hourglass first one way, then the other. The short stab of pain in my lungs ignites into a slow fire of anger. The scene I have just witnessed may be the closest man comes to God on earth, but it is not the work of an honest courtesan. The very point of our business is that courtesans are paid to give pleasure and to pretend to receive it. Once that pretense breaks down, the whole edifice crumbles. For then it is almost the money that becomes the sin, rather than the act.

  In these few years, we have made up all that we lost in Rome. We are secure here. Indeed, we are content…. Which, if you think about it, is a dangerous state in life, for it is always the perfect garden into which the serpent slithers on its way up into the branches of the apple tree.

  Now, it seems, there is a snake in our grass.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  But all is not lost yet.

  I wait until she rises. We have a ritual, she and I, for the mornings. I leave just after dawn for the market. She wakes late—for hers is a working night—and calls first for Gabriella, who helps her to wash and dress before bringing up the fresh breads and sweet, watered wine, which she drinks while sitting in her chair overlooking the water. Then I join her, and we go together through the day’s commitments and anything that I should know about from the evening before. While each and every suitor has his allotted time and requirements, of which I have prior notice, there is the odd occasion when a regular—our Crow in particular—might make a separate arrangement with her or simply stop by on the chance of a favor: for there is a certain frisson to be had from pretending their liaison is one of spontaneous pleasure as much as of regular business. But should that happen, she has a mind like a steel trap when it comes to noting when and for how long, so I will know what to put against their names. That is how it works. She and I in partnership, each and every man treated equally according to his means; for we are both experts at the art of juggling, keeping all the balls moving through the air with equal precision and grace. That she is in trouble with the pup is clear enough for anyone with eyes to see. But she has not become this successful by being reckless. She was trained to have judgment too, and we may yet be saved by her using it.

  It is after midday by the time I am summoned. When I enter, she is in the chair with a bowl of white paste and a stand mirror in front of her, applying a mask to her face, though this is not the day for such a treatment.

  “Good morning, Bucino.” She glances at me, smiling, her voice light, her spirits evidently high despite what I know to be a lack of sleep. “How was the market?”

  “I let Mauro go alone. I was late to bed waiting for you.”

  “Oh, I am sorry. I asked Tiziano to send a message. Did you not get it? He had me sitting for so long that it was easier to stay on and dine. Aretino came. Ah! He was so rude about the painting. You should have heard him. He even accused me of pleasuring myself as I lay there with my hand across me. Imagine! I tell you, he has grown tired of goodness and is back to his old ways. Was it you who told me he is writing scandalous stuff again? I asked him, but he wouldn’t talk about it. Still, underneath, I know he approved of the portrait, for he loves almost everything Tiziano does. But you are a more honest judge than any of them. What did you think?”

  “I think it is a shame we can’t afford to buy it,” I say, keeping my tone as light as hers. “We could hang it on the wall opposite the new mirror and charge a sliding scale: one fee for an hour in the company of the real woman, another for the painted one.”

  She snorts. “Oh, Bucino, don’t make me laugh. You know I am not supposed to move my face too much as the paste dries.”

  “Why so much face care? Or have I got the day wrong?”

  She shrugs. “What did you used to say to me? In our business there is never such a thing as too much beauty. See? I listen to everything you tell me.”

  “Yes,” I say. “What time did you get home?”

  “Oh, late—it must have been two, three o’clock, I think.”

  “Marcello brought you back, yes?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Where is he now? There was no boat there this morning.”

  “Er…ah, yes. Well, he had waited so long for me, poor thing. I gave him the rest of the night off.”

  Of course—it would not have done to have him there when the other boat arrived. I wait. If she is to tell me, it will be now: Ah, by the way, Bucino—I have a confession to make. Foscari visited me last night…. I know you’ll be cross, but it was late and my free time, and I am sure he will make it up to us when his allowance comes in. So easy. But instead she continues to apply the paste, her face disappearing into the china whiteness of a carnival mask. Soon there will no room for any expression.

  “Did you sleep well?” I ask, my eyes somewhere else.

  “Mmm. You would be surprised how exhausting it is lying propped on a bed staring into the distance for so long.”

  “I’m sure.”

  A pause opens and lengthens. We have so much to talk about, she and I. Not just this but the visit of the Jew. She needs to know about the stone and the young woman and how we came within a breath of catching her so many years ago. It is the stuff of our history together. But if she now keeps secrets from me, so will I keep them from her. I feel strange: as if I have walked into a room I just left, only to find the furniture so rearranged that I cannot get my bearings or understand how it could have happened so fast. I find myself thinking back to the garden at Tiziano’s yesterday as her gaze slid away from me to the jasmine. Then I see her face in the painting. “Courtesans think whatever
you want them to be thinking.” That is their job. She, like me, is an expert liar. Even her moaning is fake. Usually. That is how she earns her living. Our living.

  “Are you all right, Bucino?”

  “Me? Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “I don’t know. You seem…well…so glum these days.”

  “I am busy. The business takes a lot of time.”

  “I know. And there is no one who is as good at it as you. But it is worth it? I mean, it goes well enough, yes? You would tell me if it didn’t?”

  “Yes, it goes well enough.”

  All around me I hear the rustling. Yet surely if you spot the snake even as it slithers into Paradise, you might prevent it from getting as far as the tree. “Fiammetta.” I pause. “I know someone visited last night.”

  “What?” She lifts her head—the mask is hardened so that the only bit of her that reacts is her eyes. And they are sharp as stone chips.

  I take a breath. “I know that Foscari was here.”

  “How do you know?” And there is panic in her voice. “My God, have you been spying on me?”

  “No. No. I slept badly. And then woke to the sound of his boat leaving.”

  She stares at me as if to check that this is the truth. But I can lie as well as she when it is needed. We did not become partners in this game by accident. She makes an impatient gesture with her hand, for it is clear that now she is exposed, she cannot lie. “It was nothing. I mean, he…simply stopped on his way home to give me something.”

  “A gift. How generous. Did you receive it lying down?”

  “Ah! And whose business is it if I did?”

  “Mine,” I say. “For he owes me money.”

  “Oh! It is you he owes the money to now. Not me. Well, then I am sorry to disappoint you, but he came only to bring me a poem.”

  “A poem?”

  And she scowls at the feebleness of her own lie.

  I shake my head. “What? Did it tell you how much he loves you?”

  “Bucino! He is young and in thrall to the drama of it all. You know how it is.”

  “No, I don’t. And even if I did, that is not the point. We have an agreement. If a man comes when he is not booked, you tell me.”

  “I tried to. Yesterday I said Foscari would like to see me. It was not on anyone else’s time. Loredan had canceled. I was free. But you were the one who would have none of it.”

  “That is not how it was, Fiammetta, and you know it. You refused Alberini, and we agreed that Foscari would not visit because he did not have the money.”

  “Ah! Then he will pay later. For God’s sake. We will hardly become bankrupt without it. What do you want from me, Bucino?” And she is angry now, so that her face is moving despite the mask, small bits of the white paste flaking and falling off. “Do we not have enough for the market? Is there a shortage of clients? Are my breasts sagging or am I drinking too much wine? Do I stint on my time? Does anyone leave here unsatisfied? So—I choose to see one client for an hour or so and do not tell you because you would be ill-tempered about it.”

  “That is not how it works,” I say quietly, but not without anger, for the image of them folded together rubs like a hair shirt on my mind. “You know as well as I do the message you send out when you start giving it away. It is the beginning of the end for your reputation.”

  “And how will anyone know? Who will tell them? You? Me? Him? Our servants? I think we pay them well enough.”

  “It doesn’t matter who. Gossip is like air. You know that. It is nowhere and everywhere without anyone seeming to move it.” I try again to keep my tone steady, but I am not sure I succeed.

  “He is a customer, Fiammetta. You are a courtesan. Those are the rules we work by. The ones we agreed to together.”

  “Then maybe we should change them. For I tell you, this is insupportable to me. Rules, accounts, agreements—that is all you talk of these days. We did not work this hard for so long for it all to become so—oh, I don’t know—so boring.”

  “Boring? Really? You find it boring? Wearing the best cloth, eating haunches of roasted meat off silver plates, living in a house where you know it’s a new day because you can see the sunlight rather than because your gut aches with yesterday’s hunger? Is it so easily forgotten?”

  She stares at me, and her eyes close briefly in her whitening face. “You are a good man, Bucino, but some things you don’t understand,” she says, and her voice is almost sullen.

  I have an answer on my tongue but there is a knock at her door. It slides open far enough to show Gabriella’s face in the crack.

  “What is it?” I hear the anger in my voice. We all hear it.

  “I…It is just…well, La Draga is waiting, my lady. She says she is sorry she could not come earlier, but she was needed elsewhere.”

  “Ah!…Yes,” she stammers. “I…Let her wait in the portego. Tell her I will not be long.”

  The door closes, and we face each other again.

  “Are you ill?”

  She shrugs. “A slight case of the itch, that is all.” And even her voice sounds different now, caught between the rigor mortis of the mask and her own dishonesty.

  A slight case of the itch. Well, in one way it is. Certainly La Draga would have the answer for that. La Draga, whose presence in the house, it seems, is now timed to coincide with what should have been my absence at the market. What treasures might she have for my lady in her bag now? A balm of herbs mixed with holy water perhaps, for her to smear on her lips in readiness for the first kiss? A consecrated host with my lady’s name inscribed on it to be dissolved into the beloved one’s soup? There is a brisk enough trade in such holy objects around the city these days. While it may turn men’s stomachs to hear it, the fact is that most women—and courtesans are the greatest offenders in this—are so in thrall to the business of love that they will use anything, sacred or profane, to capture and hold a man’s desire. More often than not, the women laugh it off as more of a beauty aid than magic. They are fooling themselves, of course, for it fast becomes its own addiction: once you believe that a man is bound to you because of spells rather than your natural charms, you become as much enslaved to the potions as he might be to you.

  In Rome there were famous courtesans who paid as much to their witchy apothecaries as they did to their dressmakers. Fiammetta Bianchini, however, had never been one of them. She had never needed to be. Not until now—at least as far as I know. But then it seems there is a great deal happening in the house that I do not know.

  “So tell me, Fiammetta. What do you think your mother would say of all this?”

  “My mother?”

  The question takes her by surprise, and I watch her wrestle with it, for in these last few weeks it will not be just my voice that she has blotted from her mind.

  “I—I think she would…I think she would see what you see, but…but…I also think she would understand better.”

  “You do? So tell me.”

  “Look, it’s not what you think, Bucino. I am not stupid. I can see today as well as I could yesterday. And as well as I will tomorrow.” Her voice is calmer now, though she still cannot hold my eyes without her own darting away, which, as far as I am concerned, tells a deeper truth than anything the words can say.

  “But sometimes, just sometimes…I need—oh, I don’t know…some…joy. A little sweetness in with all the bloated flesh and belches. And Vittorio Foscari is sweet. He is sweet and young and fresh and, yes, joyful. He does not dribble into his wineglass or fall asleep in his plate, or even on top of my body. He makes me laugh. He makes me feel…I don’t know…like I am a girl again, though God knows I doubt I ever was such a thing. Which is something I think my mother would understand well enough.” And there is just a hint of bitterness as she says it. “Oh, how can I explain this to you? The fact is, he is not like the others. He does not treat me as if he owns me. I know, I know…you think that is because he does not always pay, but it’s not that. When he is with me, he feels
almost drunk on the pleasure of life. For him…well, for him, I am the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. He did not pick me out of a book, or hear about me through the filthy stories of some other man, or compare me with Julia Lombardino or any of the city’s other whores. For him, I am me. Just me. And yes, yes, he loves me for it.”

  And she is breathless even in the telling of it. God help us.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus. If you think that, then you are more a fool than he is, Fiammetta. You are—what?—almost thirty years old. While he is a boy, barely seventeen. You are simply the first.”

  “That’s not true. I am simply the best.”

  And this time I laugh out loud. “Well, if you are the best, then why do you need La Draga to help you? Eh? What’s she got planned for you today? Spiking the wine with a few incantations? How does it go? ‘With this spell I bind your head, your heart and phallus, so that you shall love only me—’ ”

  “How dare you!” She is up now, a great shower of white dust falling like snow around her. “How dare you laugh at me? Ah—now look what you have done. Gabriella!” she calls loudly, turning away from me.

  She is still calling as I leave the room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I stomp so hard along the corridor and through into the portego that my legs hurt. La Draga is waiting in the middle of the room, bag in hand, halfway between the mirror and the loggia. She whirls around almost before I enter, her face lit up with alarm, as if she has heard the fury in my footsteps.

  “Who’s there?” I watch her hands fly upward in protection. Her eyes are closed today, so that she looks almost like a sleepwalker or some saint at prayer. Ha!

  “It’s only the egghead housekeeper,” I say loudly. “The one who pays the bills but is kept in the dark.”

  “Bucino? What’s happened? What is wrong?”

  “You tell me. What are you doing here? This is not your day to visit. Or yesterday either.”

  “I…er, I am come for Fiammetta.”