In the Company of the Courtesan: A Novel

by Sarah Dunant

  At the prison entrance, we give the food to the jailer and—on Aretino’s advice (his low-life connections are impeccable)—slip a coin half under the pot to make sure it gets to her. I have asked a dozen times if I might see her to be assured that she is being fed, but my jiggling charm gets me nowhere and the answer is always the same: those accused of heresy are confined alone and allowed to see no one.

  Our days grow darker as the summer sun lifts higher in the sky.

  Two mornings ago my lady’s young lover left on a round galley bound for Cyprus. He spent a last night with her before he went. I shook his hand when he came in and asked his forgiveness for my bad behavior. He seemed almost embarrassed—for all her experience, he is still only a pup—but it was important to me that we made our peace. What passed between them I have no idea, except that the sounds which came from her room that night were as much about pain as about passion and the next day she did not emerge until the sun was already down. I, who would do anything to ease her sorrow, was useless. I know she was missing La Draga dreadfully. As a man who has lived so long with women, I have learned that there are times when they are the only ones who can help one another.

  I miss La Draga too. Not just for the moment, but for all the moments before when I chose not to recognize her.

  The trial, once it has begun, takes place behind closed doors in one of the council chambers of the palace. For the first few days I stand outside the entrance to see if I can spot the witnesses arriving, sustained by the fantasy that if I recognize the woman who accosted La Draga in the square I could show her how much damage a devil with dog’s teeth might do to a liar. But the palace swallows hundreds of people daily—the governors and the governed—and one angry old woman looks much like another.

  After a while gossip starts to spring like so many leaks from an old pipe: that one of her accusers had lost a baby in her eighth month and later found rusty nails and extracted teeth under her pillow, a sure sign of witchcraft. Yet La Draga admits nothing, and her defense—a quiet, clear logic—has at times caused offense to those adjudicating. Also, that to test her veracity, she has been subjected to the torture of the rope, though it would seem it has not changed her testimony.

  I, who am not much of a praying man—I have never quite understood if I am talking to God or to myself—have grown into the habit of addressing Loredan instead. His strangled croaks of pleasure echo in the night with monotonous regularity as my lady saves her greatest ingenuity for the one who has the influence. I think the longing left in her for the pup she now feeds into Loredan. He must feel it, because she is incandescent with beauty and tenderness, and despite his seeming implacability, he is not a cruel man. I know he has registered the anxiety of the household; even professionals cannot pretend joy when there is so much sorrow. It was he who, when the rumors of trial began to circulate, went out of his way to assure my lady that the court’s treatment of La Draga was moderate given the temper of the times and that the rope was used only sparingly.

  A few days ago while he was at dinner, I helped serve and engaged him in conversation about reform of the Church and Contarini’s history of the state, and we talked about the emphasis of charity over devotion and the role of purity in just government. I doubt he was fooled by my passion when it came to the power of clemency within justice, but I think he enjoyed the discussion, for his arguments shone through well enough.

  It would be easier if we were ruled by fools; then at least we would expect nothing. I don’t think I have ever been so afraid.

  On the afternoon of the sixth day, I am returning home from delivering the food when I spot a well-dressed boat docked at our entrance. There are no suitors booked until evening, and my lady would not entertain newcomers without my vetting them first. As I cross in through the water doors, I hear footsteps coming down the stairs, and the figure of the Turk emerges in front of me, turban tall, in rich, flowing robes.

  We have not seen each other since that day he saved me from drowning and the bird’s talons sank themselves into my ears. My God—how many aeons ago was that?

  “Ah, Bucino Teodoldi. I had hoped I might see you before I go.” And his smile is broad. “I was…visiting your lady.”

  “You were?”

  He laughs. “Don’t worry. I am not to be put in your precious account book. We had business to discuss. I had wanted to come before to ask after your health, but…there have been other things demanding my attention. Tell me, how are you?”

  “Alive.”

  “In body, yes, but not, I think, so much in spirit.”

  “I—I am burdened by a certain worry, that is all,” I say.

  “Ah. Such is the way of the times. I am come partly to say good-bye. I have been recalled to the court. The relations between our two great states have grown sour again, and while we are not yet at war, it is clear I will not be welcome here much longer.” There is a pause. “I shall miss teaching you my language.” And he pauses again, no doubt to give me more time to change my mind. “But I think perhaps you make the right choice. While Venice may not appreciate you, there are those who are fond enough.” He holds out his hand to me. “Take care of yourself, my little friend. I have enjoyed your company.”

  “And I yours.” I take his hand, and as I do so I see an image of a city filled with elephants and fountains, peacocks, mosaics, and tightrope walkers, and I wonder for a flickering instant what the great Constantinople might have offered me. But it is only an instant; it passes.

  Upstairs, my lady is in the portego in deep conversation with Gabriella. But she stops as she sees me and dismisses the maid.

  On her way out, Gabriella’s eyes do not meet mine. My gut squeezes with panic.

  “What is it? What has happened?”

  “Bucino, come.” My lady holds out her hand to me, smiling. Her eyes are bright, but she is an expert at faking enthusiasm when she feels none and I am too eaten up by nerves to know the difference anymore between wild hope and despair. “You look tired. Do your legs hurt? Sit down with me.”

  “My legs are fine.” On the table I notice the rich red leather binding of Petrarch, the silver lock twirled into place. “Why is the book here? Has something happened? Tell me.”

  “I—I have heard from Loredan. It—it seems he can get us access to visit her in prison. Only it involves money, a payment, a kind of bribe….”

  A bribe. Of course. The lubricant that oils every position and principle in this pure state. You are baying at the moon, Gasparo Contarini—for this city is already sold to the Devil.

  “How much?”

  She opens a small drawer in the desk and slides a purse across the surface to me. I pick it up, I who can tell the shape and the weight of a ducat through material better than most men. It is not a small amount.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  My eyes fall back to the book.

  “It’s not what you think,” she says hurriedly. “I haven’t jeopardized our future. I haven’t sold the book.” She pauses. “Merely…extracted a few pages.”

  “What?”

  “I—I have removed two of the prints, and the sonnets to go with them.”

  “For whom?”

  But of course I already know.

  “My God, you sold them to the Turk. How—”

  “Listen to me, Bucino. It made sense. I know how we live hand-to-mouth, and this was too great an amount for us to raise alone. If I had tried to sell the whole book, there would have been no time to find the right bidder for the right price and the city would have been alive with gossip. But then I heard the Turk was leaving, and I went to visit him. The sultan’s appetite for novelty is famous, and since he has more women than I have men, I thought he’d enjoy the company of a few lascivious Romans. This way we keep the bulk of the book intact and raise the money we need. Your Turk was most generous.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me about it? We should have discussed it.”

  “Be
cause…” She stops. “Because you would have seen it as too great a risk for our future and said no.”

  Is she right? The old Bucino would have refused, certainly. As to what this new one might have done, I have no idea, for she has done it for me.

  “Aretino? Does he know?”

  “Abdullah Pashna was his idea. He says by rights he owns only one of the engravings anyway. For without us they wouldn’t exist at all.”

  Ah, my Turk is right. There are those here who are fond enough of me.

  “I doubt your mother would approve,” I say quietly.

  She shrugs. “My mother died alone of the pox. That’s what putting business above the heart did for her. You are lucky. Abdullah would have given a lot more for you, you know. But, as we are partners, I told him you were not for sale.”

  “Oh, thank God for you, Fiammetta Bianchini.” I laugh.

  “Bucino”—she puts her hand over mine—“I am sorry…but there is something else you must know.”

  What? Had I expected that they would let her walk free? Disregard the bones, forget the book, forgive the amulets and potions, the signs and incantations, block their ears to the poison of Devil gossip? The fact is that La Draga was guilty before the law long before she was arraigned in any courtroom. I am not so stupid or so love struck that I didn’t know that. But then so are a thousand others, equally guilty, and how many of those go on to die in their own beds? There is not a state in Christendom where justice isn’t a commodity as salable as a shipment of silk or a woman’s virginity. You just have to know the price and the people to pay it to. Not a state in Christendom.

  Except, it seems, for Venice.

  Our great Crow says he did what he could. That is what he told my lady, and that is what she believes. She says he did not need to tell her ahead of the verdict being announced, but he wanted to warn us. There have, it seems, been “discussions” about this case; while the potions and divinations on their own might have been seen as misguided faith, the bones have condemned her. They and the fact that she consorted openly with prostitutes and courtesans. Though in all of this it is only rumor, for she would give no facts and no names. It is, as Aretino said, a question of timing as much as guilt. With instability building abroad, the state must feel unassailable at home. All these things have conspired to make the verdict harsh but inevitable. The verdict and the sentence.

  “But he can and will intercede here, Bucino. That he absolutely promised me. She will not burn, do you hear me? She will not burn, and neither will she suffer unduly.”

  Not suffer unduly. And for this, it appears, we must be grateful. God damn the complacency of his mercy, the foul righteousness of his justice. It is as well La Draga is not freed, or I would have a potion from her that would have his prick drop off the next time he tried to use it. I am so angry that my head hurts. But for now, when he comes, I must simper and smile and thank him for his boundless generosity, for the fact is, without his intercession, we will never get ourselves through the prison bars.

  Yet in the end, it is not we who go.

  The next evening, just before dusk, I clamber ahead of my lady onto the boat, the purse hidden deep in my doublet, and put out my hand to help her on, as is my wont, so the world can see how much I am her servant. But she smiles and shakes her head.

  “I cannot come with you, Bucino. The intercession that Loredan has arranged allows for only one visitor. And however much we pay them, there will be some gossip. For that reason it cannot be me. No—” She stops my protest at the same instant it leaves my mouth. “This is not a matter for discussion. It is already decided. You are the one who is expected at the gate. I will wait here for you. Go now.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  He is a different man from the one to whom I have delivered her food each day. This one smirks when he sees me—no doubt there are a million jokes to be made about a dwarf visiting a witch—but it seems that not all men who do foul jobs are made foul by them, and whatever his thoughts, he keeps them to himself. He lets me into a small courtyard, where another man meets me and takes me through a door down one, then a second, then a third set of stairs. The little light that was left in the day is snuffed as we descend. This far below ground it is perpetual night. Here a third jailer is waiting, this one built like a barrel and smelling as foul as his prisoners, though as much from stale beer as from the stench of his own body. He looks at me as if I am a cockroach until the purse is on the table. He empties it and stacks the coins into three separate piles. Three jailers, three piles. He counts them again, then looks up at me, sneering. “Where’s the rest?”

  There was a time when men his size frightened me, as much for the bluntness of their brains as for the force of their fists. But now I don’t care. Now I just think of them as pieces of meat with mouths attached. God take their souls, if he can find them.

  “Up your ass,” I say, grinning.

  He growls at me for a moment, as if he might flatten my head against the wall, then he starts to laugh and moves over and slaps me on the shoulder as if I were his long-lost brother, and suddenly he is as sweet as tooth rot, offering me wine and insisting on bringing extra candles and a stool with us as he takes me to the cell, so I will not have to sit on the floor.

  I follow him down the black corridor. We pass maybe a dozen chambers, each the size of a pigpen, the smoky light of his two candle lamps throwing up the occasional figure curled on the floor or in the corner, but no faces, and I am suddenly more scared of my own footsteps than I could ever be of his belligerence. The dark, the smell, the dankness. My God, why should anyone be afraid of dying if this is what passes for life? He has to count the cells to be sure he has reached the right one, and he puts down the candles as he opens the lock.

  I walk inside. At first I think there is no one here. Then, in the gloom, I make out a small figure sitting on a pallet at the back of the cell, her body facing the wall. She—What shall I call her now? For she is no longer La Draga in my mind. She, Elena, does not look up or move in any way as I come in. I glance at the jailer, and he shrugs, dumping the stool and one of the candle lamps next to me and clanging the door behind him. The keys chatter loudly in the lock.

  I move in front of her, adjusting the candle so that I can make out her face. Her eyes are in a terrible state; that much I can see from the start. They are swollen; one is almost closed, and the other is twitching and full of puss, and she blinks it constantly.

  “Elena?”

  No response.

  “Elena. Can you see me? I’m here. Right in front of you.”

  She puts her head to one side and frowns a little. “Ha! Is that the Devil or a dog?”

  And because we were never familiar enough to laugh together, I am scared for an instant that this might be madness rather than humor.

  “Neither. It is me, Bucino.” I take a breath. “Remember?”

  She makes a small noise. “Then you had better wear white from now on and make sure you walk upright or you could be mistaken for both.”

  I cannot help but laugh, but then nerves take men in different ways. From somewhere close, the next cell, I hear a thud, then the voice of a woman, moaning.

  “Are you…I…How are you?”

  Her face is half sneer, half smile. Each and every one of its gestures I have seen a thousand times before, and yet something closes in my throat to watch them now. “I am a witch, you know. Yet I can’t free myself by flying out of the window.”

  “I…There is no window in here,” I say gently.

  She makes an impatient little noise with her tongue. “I know that, Bucino. So how did you get in?”

  “Money. Fiammetta interceded through her great Crow, and we paid money to the guards.”

  “Ah.”

  “We would have paid money to the court also, I mean, to try to stop it, only—”

  “—only they would have none of it. It is all right. I know. They were most proud of their sternness.”

  “Yet people say you wer
e as clever as they.”

  She shrugs. “She swore it was the Devil’s dog coming from my window when everyone knew she could barely see past the ends of her own fingers. In the court, when I asked her, she couldn’t tell the judge from the statue next to him.”

  She makes a crooked little smile at the memory of it. The light is better now, or my eyes better adjusted. Her face is grimy with dirt. Except for the rivulet of tears that leaks out from one of her eyes. I want so much to lift up my hand and wipe it clear. I watch as she tries to twitch the pain away.

  “You have been getting the food we send, yes?”

  She nods, though it doesn’t look if she has eaten much of it.

  “Did they tell you it was from us? We have done everything we could for you.”

  “They said I had ‘a benefactor.’” She pronounces the last word as if it was almost a libation. “ ‘A benefactor for a malefactor.’ Then they said ‘good for bad,’ because they didn’t think I’d understand it. They thought my notebook was written by the Devil until I told them the code. They read some of it in court—it was a remedy for constipation. Perhaps I should have charged them for it.”

  “I doubt it would have helped. Shit builds up again fast in some people.”

  She smiles at my crudeness. “How is she? Is Foscari gone?”

  “Yes,” I say. “She is…she is lost without you.”

  “I don’t think so.” She blinks fast a number of times again. “She still has you.”

  I watch another spasm of pain cross her face. I take a breath. “What of your eyes, Elena? What’s happened to them?”