by Ali Smith
The 9th was a boy dressed as Justice : he sat at the foot of the throne : he was holding such a heavy-looking sword in the air that when the platform stopped he tipped sideways, knocked into the big set of scales in front of him and nearly toppled off the platform : but he didn’t, he righted himself by thumping the point of the sword off the floor of the cart : he shifted the fallen-forward fabric of his costume back up over his shoulder, used a graceful foot to tip the upended scales back to an evenness, got his breath and stuck the sword in the air again : everybody who saw it happen shouted hurray and clapped their hands, at which Justice looked mortified cause of the grimness on the face of the portly man who’d come to stand at the side of the platform facing the empty throne.
This man was glinting with gems : he was why we were here, he was the kindly generous charismatic Borse d’Est, the new Duke of Reggio and Modena, the brand-new Marquis of Ferara (and a pompous self-regarding fool, Barto said telling me the story doing the rounds of all the rich families who weren’t Ests, about how the kindly generous charismatic Borse had been giving the Emperor gifts over many months so that everyone would know he was kindly generous and charismatic and above all much more of a gift-giver than his brother, the last Marquis, who’d known a lot of Latin, lived a quiet life then died : on the day Borse first heard that finally the Emperor was to make him Duke of Modena and Reggio (though not yet of Ferara, damn it) his attendants had seen him jumping up and down by himself in the rose garden of the palace of fine outlook squealing like a child the words over and over I’m a Duke! I’m a Duke!).
There were gems all over the front of him : they caught the sun like he was wearing lots of little mirrors or stars or was covered in sparks : the biggest gem, bright verdigris on the front of his coat which was vermilion, was near as big as one of his hands by which he’d been led to the front of the platform, to Justice, by a very small boy-angel (swan-feather wings, very fresh off the swan cause there was still red seepage and a shine of gristle at the bone where it met the white of the fabric on the boy’s back).
Most illustrious Lord, the angel said now in a high clear voice.
The crowd in the wide square quietened.
The portly man bowed to the angel.
You see seated before you God’s own Justice, the angel said and his voice rang thin as a handbell above the heads of the people.
The portly man turned from the angel and bowed with great ceremony to Justice : I saw Justice not dare bow back : the too-heavy sword wavered above them both.
The angel squeaked again.
Justice who for so long now has been forgotten! Justice who has been held for far too long in blind contempt! All the rulers of the world have closed their eyes to Justice! Forgotten and disdained since the deaths of her guardians, the wise ancient statesmen of a better time! Justice has been so lonely!
The boy dressed as Justice brought his other hand to the handle of his sword and with both hands stopped it wavering.
But rejoice cause today, illustrious Lord, Justice is dead! the angel said.
There was a shocked pause.
The angel looked stricken.
Today illustrious Lord, the angel said again. Justice is. Dead.
The portly man stayed bowed : the angel’s eyes were shut, screwed up : the boys on the cart stared straight ahead. A courtier started forward from the rows of horses at the back of the platform beyond the empty throne : the portly man, without looking, raised his hand away from his side just a touch and the courtier saw and reined his horse in.
Still from his low bow the portly man mumbled something in the direction of the angel.
– 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 caus
e 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 do
wn 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.