by Ali Smith
– Dedicating, the angel blurted. This seat. To you! Today Justice lets it be known to the world that above all others she favours – you! Justice bows –to you! Justice in her purity even declares that she is enamoured – of you! And rejoice again, cause Justice invites – you! To take the seat left empty by the deaths of the great wise ancients. The last just rulers of men. Cause Justice says, illustrious Lord, that nobody could fill this seat justly till now! This seat was empty and remained empty – till you!
The portly man, the new Duke, straightened up : his front glinted : he went to the angel : with his hand on the boy’s shoulder he turned him square on so they both faced the platform.
The boy dressed as Justice still holding the sword with 2 hands let go with one of his hands momentarily to gesticulate towards the empty throne then brought that hand back to the sword handle quick as he could.
The new Duke spoke.
I thank Justice. I revere Justice. But I cannot accept this honour. I cannot take such a throne. Cause I am merely a man. But I am a man who will do my best by my Ducal vows all my life to merit Justice’s honour and approval.
A moment of silence : then the crowd below us went wild with cheering.
Pompous arse, Barto said. Pompous Borse. Stupid crowd of fools.
I was inclined to join the cheering myself which was persuasive and echoed round the great square : also I’d heard that Borse was a man who liked to give gifts to favoured painters and musicians and I didn’t want to think so badly of him and sure enough the crowd seemed to hold him in favour and could such a festive crowd be so very wrong? The noise the people made in his honour was huge and the new Duke was so modest : the dressed-up boys on the cart looked soaked through by the noise of the crowd like they’d just been driven through a waterfall.
Only the angel with the swan wings didn’t look relieved : from above them as the new Duke bowed again to the crowd and the crowd went on cheering, I could see a redness at the angel’s shoulder and neck like the minium pigment which is a red that soon turns to black, it came from the hand of the new Duke gripping it hard enough to leave an imprint on it : but it is a hard thing in the world, to be modest, and must probably result in bruises for somebody somewhere along the line.
Come on, Barto said. We’re going hunting.
We drove to Bologna.
At the house of pleasure in his home city Barto was already so well known that 3 girls came towards us saying his name and taking turns to kiss him before we even got through its outer doors.
This is Francescho, he’s fresh from the egg. He’s my dear, dear friend. Remember, I told you. He’s a little shy, Barto said to a woman I couldn’t quite see cause she shimmered and the rooms were dark and full of so many women as dishevelled and disarrayed as enchantresses and there was a rich smell, God knew what of, and rich colours and carpets everywhere, underfoot, on the walls and even up there soft-coating the ceiling perhaps, though I couldn’t be sure cause the sweet dirty smells and air and the colours and presences made my senses spin and the floor act like ceiling as soon as we came into the inner rooms.
The woman had me by my hand : she took my coat off my shoulders : she tried to take my satchel from me but it had my drawing things in it : I hung on to it with one arm still in the sleeve of the coat.
She put her mouth to my ear.
Don’t be scared, boy. And look, don’t insult us, your pockets and purse’ll stay full, only ever minus what we’re worth or what extra you’d like to give us, you’ve my word on it, there are no thieves here, we’re all honest and worthy here.
No, no, I said, it’s not, I, – I don’t mean to –
but in the saying of all the words in my ear she’d near-carried me in her arms, she was powerfully strong and it was as if I’d no will of my own, to the door of another room, made me light as a leaf and swept me in like one and shut the door behind us, I could feel the door at my back but through a lace or a curtain or some thin carpet-stuff.
I held on to my satchel and felt for a door handle with my other hand but there was none I could find : now the woman was pulling me towards the bed by the strap of the satchel and I was pulling against the strap back towards the door.
What soft skin you have, she said. Hardly even sign of a beard (she put the back of her hand on my cheek), come on, you’ve nothing to worry about, not even paying cause the friend you came in with, it’s already arranged it’s on him.
She sat on the bed still holding me by the strap of my satchel : she smiled up at me : she pulled a playful couple of times gently on the strap : I held back polite the full length of it.
She sighed : she let the strap go: she looked towards the door : when I didn’t make a dash for it right away she smiled at me again a very different way.
First time? she said unbuttoning her front. I’ll take care. I promise. Don’t be scared. Let me. Of you.
Now she was holding the fall and weight of her own naked breast in her hand.
Don’t you like me? she said.
I shrugged.
She tucked the breast back in : she sighed again.
Jesus Mary and Joseph I’m tired, she said. Okay. Let me put myself together. We’ll sort this out. We’ll get you another girl. You and she can use my room. As you can see, the best room. So what do you like? Tell me. You like yellow hair? You like younger?
I don’t want another girl, I said.
She looked pleased.
You want me? she said.
Not that way, I said.
She frowned : then she smiled.
You prefer a man? she said.
I shook my head.
Who do you want, who would you like to fuck? she said.
I don’t, I said.
You don’t want a fuck? she said. You want something else? Something special? Your friend in here with a girl too? You want to watch? You want 2 girls? You want pain? Piss? A nun? A priest? Whips? Ties? A bishop? We can do it all, pretty much everything here.
I sat down on the bench at the end of the bed : I opened my satchel, unrolled the paper, got out my board.
Ah, she said. That’s what you are. I should have guessed.
The light in the room was candle-undulate : it was best over the bed where she now was, dark and prettily pointed of face against the bedclothes, her nose turning up at the end, her chin dainty : older than me by 10 years, or maybe it could even be 20 : the years of love had worn her eyes, I could see ruin in them : the dark of the ruin made her serious even though she’d painted herself something quite else.
I moved a candle, and another.
You’re looking at me so, she said.
I am thinking the word pretty, I said.
Well, I’m thinking the same word about you, she said, and believe me, it’s not my job to have such thoughts. Though it’s often my job to pretend that I do.
And the word beautiful, I said. But with the word terribly.
She laughed a little laugh down into her collarbone.
Oh you’re a perfect one, she said. Ah, come on, don’t you want to? I’d like to. I like you. You’d like me. I’m good. I’ll be good, I’ll be gentle. I’m strong. I can show you. I’m the best here, you know. I cost double the others. I’m worth it. It’s why your friend chose me. A gift. I’m a gift. I’m the one who costs most right now in the whole house, skilled way beyond the others and yours for the whole of tonight.
Lie back, I said.
Good, she said. Like this? This? Shall I take this off?
The sleeve-ties fell as she unlaced them ribboning over her stomach.
Stay still, I said cause the breast in and out of her clothes was now perfect curvature.
This? she said.
Relax, I said. Don’t move. Can you do both?
Like I told you, I can do anything, she said. Eyes open or closed?
You choose, I said.
She looked surprised : then she smiled.
Thank you, she said.
She closed them.
/> By the time I’d finished she was sleeping : so I had a sleep myself there on the bed by her feet, and when I woke the beginning of daylight was coming through the gap in the shutter through the window hangings.
I shook her a little by the shoulder.
She opened her eyes : she panicked : she clutched for something under her pillows down the back of the bed. Whatever she’d felt for was still there : she relaxed, lay back again : she turned and looked at me blankly : then she remembered.
Did I fall asleep? she said.
You were tired, I said.
Ah, we’re all tired in here at this end of the week, she said.
Did you sleep well? I said.
She looked bemused at my politeness : then she laughed and said
Yes!
as if the very thought that a sleep had been nice was astonishing.
I sat on the edge of the bed : I asked her her name.
Ginevra, she said. Like the queen in the stories, don’t you know. Married to the king. What elegant hands you have, Mr –.
Francescho, I said.
I gave her the piece of paper : she yawned, barely glanced.
You’re not my first, she said. I’ve been done before. But your kind, well. You yourself are a bit unusual. Your kind usually likes to draw more than one person, no? People in the act, or –. Oh.
She sat up : she held the picture closer to what morning light there was in the room.
Oh, she said again. Haven’t you made me look –. And yet it still looks –. Well, –. Very –.
Then she said, can I have this? To keep, for myself I mean?
On one condition, I said.
You’ll finally let me? she said.
She threw the sheet back from herself and patted the bed beside her.
I want you to tell him, I said. My friend, I mean. That you and I had a really good time.
You want me to lie to your friend? she said.
No, I said. Cause we did. Have a good time. Well, I did. And you just said yourself, you slept well.
She looked at me disbelievingly : she looked down at the drawing again.
That’s all you want for it? she said.
I nodded.
Then I went to find Barto in the lobby which in what daylight came through the cracked-open shutters was very different from its night self, stale, stained, patchy, signs of a fire gone wrong all up one wall : Barto was sitting in an anteroom with the house’s Mistress, she was older than anyone I’ve ever seen done up in white frills and ribbons, 2 servingmen filling a small cup with something, one pouring, the other waiting to hold it to her lip : before we left Barto kissed her white old hand.
Barto looked stale and stained and patchy too, rough as masonry and his clothes were creased, I saw when we came out of the house of pleasure into the sun.
I can’t pay for you every time, Barto said on our way to get breakfast. Especially not Ginevra. When I’m earning or I inherit I’ll treat you again. But did you have a good time? Did you use the time well?
Hardly slept, I said.
He clapped me on the shoulder.
The next time we came (cause I started to spend a couple of nights a month, my father believed, cultivating the possibility of the patronage of the Garganelli family), Ginevra met us at the door : she winked at Barto and put an arm round me, took me off to one side.
Francescho, she said. I have someone special to meet you. This is Agnola. She knows what you’ll like and how you like to spend your time with us.
Agnola had long waved gold hair : she was strong at the thigh as a horsewoman though young : when we got into one of the shuttered rooms with the curtained walls she took my hand and sat me down matter-of-fact at a little table, then stood above me in a most shy way and said,
you know Mr Francescho the picture you made of Ginevra? Would you care to make another picture like it, but this time of me, for remuneration?
which I did, this time the body naked on the bedcovers to show the symmetrics, cause the great Alberti, who graced by coincidence the year of my birth with his book for picturemakers, notes the usefulness of such study of the human body’s system of weights and levers, balances and counterbalances : when I’d finished and the drawing was dry she took it, held it to the candle light, looked hard at it, looked at me to see if she could trust me, looked back at the paper again : she put it down on the bed and went to open a hidden hole in one of the walls : she got a little purse out of it and paid me a number of coins.
Then she and I lay down on the bed and closed our eyes and she woke rested, the same as Ginevra (I did too, to find I was in her arms and most content and warm, it was most pleasant), and she thanked me for both the picture and the chance to catch up on her sleep.
You’re a rare client Mr Francescho and I hope you’ll choose me again, she said.
I left with the coins in my pocket and bought Barto and me both our breakfasts that day.
So I went about my apprenticeship with my father and my brothers all that week thinking I was on to quite a winning thing working freelance at the house of pleasure.
The time after that it was the girl called Isotta, who was black-haired and dark-skinned, not much older than me, and who sat demure on the bed while we discussed and agreed the drawing of her and the price she’d pay then when I turned my back to get my paper and tools out of my satchel sneaked silent up the bed like a cat and turned me and kissed me full on the mouth when I didn’t expect it and had never expected such a thing to happen with any tongue ever, to me, and then she surprised me more by slipping (at the same time as she kissed me, hard yet soft and full at the lip, both) a hand down inside the front of my breeches : the fear that went through me then when she did this and I knew that any second she’d know me truly was 100 times stronger than the feeling released by the kiss, and both were the strongest things I’d felt in all my years alive.
But what she did to me next with that hand made me feel something 1000 times stronger than any fear, and when I comprehended that this girl was now all delight, when I felt delight go through her at what her hand had found there and then when I opened my eyes and saw for sure this delight on her most handsome face, well, I understood this, then : that fear is a nothing in the world, a paltry thing, compared.
I knew it, she said, as soon as I saw you. And I saw you the first night you came here, though you didn’t see me. And I saw you the next, and I knew both times, and both times I wanted you for me.
She kissed me again, and had me out of my clothes in no time : in no time she’d taught me the rudiments of the art of love and let me practise back on her generously : after which, I moved to the end of the bed and she stayed among the pillows and I caught her on the paper in a form both sated and ready, still tensile as a bowstring drawn back ready for its arrow, yet also as well made and completed as the circle drawn by Giotto in the legendary true story.
I gave her the work at the end as payment for the lessons : she looked at it, pleased : she kissed me back into my clothes, buttoned me up, tied me in and sent me on my way now new, all shining and courageous.
What’s got into you? my father said cause all I could think of all that week was flowers for breath and flowers for eyes and mouths full of flowers, armpits of them, the backs of knees, laps, groins overflowing with flowers and all I could draw was leaves and flowers, the whorls of the roses, the foliage dark.
The next time I came to the house there were 3 new different girls all whispering in my ears at the door the promise and request of their lessons in love in exchange for my drawings (though I made sure to finish the night again with Isotta, which became my practice while she worked in that city and I visited the house she worked in).
The time after that though, Barto and I rang together at the door and there were 8 or 9, maybe more, I couldn’t count them, women and girls of varying ages, their faces all round me as soon as we entered.
Francescho, Barto said in my ear, it seems you’re quite the lover.
; At which I knew (since far more of them had run towards me than to him) that I’d have to be a little careful : even a true friend finds a friend’s talents wearing if they come too close and I loved Barto with my whole heart and really didn’t want ever to cause him offence.
But art and love are a matter of mouths open in cinnabar, of blackness and redness turned to velvet by assiduous grinding, of understanding the colours that benefit from being rubbed softly one into the other : the least that the practice will make you is skilful : beyond which there’s originality itself, which is what practice is really about in the end and already I had a name for originality, undeniable, and to this name I had a responsibility far beyond the answering of the needs of any friend.
This is all in Cennini’s Handbook for Painters, as well as the strict instruction that we must always take pleasure from our work : cause love and painting both are works of skill and aim : the arrow meets the circle of its target, the straight line meets the curve or circle, 2 things meet and dimension and perspective happen : and in the making of pictures and love – both – time itself changes its shape : the hours pass without being hours, they become something else, they become their own opposite, they become timelessness, they become no time at all.
The great teacher Cennini also advises spending as little time as possible with women, who will waste the energies of a picturemaker.
I can honestly say, then, that in my training I spent what always transformed into no time at all with women in that pleasure house in the years of my youth.
The Mistress of the house, though, caught at me one morning by the elbow : she was more than 75 years old and she walked with 2 sticks and a helper, but precious stones caught light all over her white clothes like she’d just been out hobbling through a rainshower of them, one of which shining little stones she detached from its place sewn on to her sleeve with her canny old fingers unpicking the stitch and pressed into my hand, saying :
You. I’ve had 5 women leave here cause of your pictures. What’s your name? That’s you. Francescho. Well, listen, little Francescho, whose name I hear whispered up and down my stairs and whose pictures I see being passed around and fussed over all through my house. That’s 5 girls and women you owe me.