In the Company of the Courtesan

by Sarah Dunant

  I look at her and think how lovely she is when her spirit is alight, and how it is the way people deal with hardship, rather than success, that sets them apart. I swear I would live with her poor rather than anyone else rich. Though I would still prefer not to have to make the choice.

  “How would it be if we didn’t make an enemy of Aretino, kept the book, forgot about the boat, but still made our fortune?”

  She looks at me sharply. “Tell me.”

  In the end I go alone. She takes some persuading, for we both know that she could play it well, but she will get her own performance soon enough if it works, and if there is to be bad blood, then it is better that it remain between him and me.

  I choose my moment carefully, dressing up for it, washing with lavender water, and wearing my new doublet and hose so that I look more an equal than a supplicant. I make sure that I eat so my stomach does not rumble, and I hire a boat, which I pay to wait so that if he looks out of his window, he will not see this as a strategy of despair and because, though the water makes me nervous, it is better than arriving with trembling legs, which is always a risk after I have walked too fast or too long.

  It is sunny this morning, a tender spring sun that makes the Grand Canal shimmer and lights up the ultramarine and gold of the Ca’ d’Oro as if it were an entrance to Heaven, which you could almost believe it is from the number of visitors and pilgrims who rock to and fro on crowded little boats in the middle of the canal gaping at it. Aretino’s house, which I already know to be rented from one Bishop Bollani, stands on the same side of the canal to the east, closer to the mayhem of the Rialto. It is a grand enough address—and one my lady would have given another virginity for—but there are no people gaping here: the water is too busy with boats of yelling tradesmen maneuvering their way to shore laden with vegetables and meat for the markets.

  The house itself, for all its size, is dingy, its decorations nibbled by salt water and wind and its doorway off the canal so forbidding that it looks more like a way into prison than like a home.

  The boatman works his way to its landing bay, trading insults with those who block his passage or scrape his paintwork. The water is so choppy with activity that there is a widening gap between the edge of the boat and the jetty, and my legs are too short to make it over without him giving me a hefty push, which sends me flying onto the wood headfirst and causes a riot of laughter from anyone within fifty yards of us. As I pick myself up, I glance at the balcony window, but there is no one above to witness my humiliation. I imagine myself standing up there: my God, what a view that would be—Venice spread at your feet as if you had been given shares in the wonder of the city.

  I pick myself up and move inside. The stone stairway off the entrance is equally crumbling, and I recognize the smell of urine along with water rot; even rich men, it seems, roll home drunk and careless.

  The view improves as I turn the corner to the level above and a pretty, young woman with plump cheeks and plumper breasts appears on a sunlit landing to welcome me. I watch her eyes grow round with astonishment as she registers my shape and size. Rising up from the darkness, I probably resemble an incubus come to suck the youth and virtue out of her nipples. Ah, listen to me! A first hint of good living and I am already prey to temptation. Given Aretino’s reputation, while I might still get a taste of youth, any virtue would already be long gone.

  “My dear lady,” I say, bowing—which always makes them laugh, for my legs are too small for it. “Please don’t be alarmed. I am one of God’s smaller creatures but full of his grace and, as you can see, perfectly formed. Well, almost. And I am here to see your master.”

  It takes her a while to get over her giggles. “Oh! Who shall I tell him you are?”

  “A Roman courtesan’s dwarf.”

  She giggles again before disappearing down the corridor. I watch her go. A domestic treasure certainly but probably food more for comfort than for inspiration.

  He comes out himself to greet me. He is dressed for the house, with his shirt half out and his beard and hair untidy and ink stains on his left hand. Now that he is without a jacket, for the first time I can more clearly see his right one, which falls awkwardly by his side.

  “My splendid monkey friend!” He punches me loosely in the chest. We are men’s men, he and I—or at least we pretend as much to each other. “What a great pleasure. I am busy at my scribbling, but I will break off for you. Especially if you have brought news of your tart-tongued lady. Come.”

  I follow him into the portego, the great room that is also the broad central corridor of the piano nobile floor of all Venice’s grand houses and stretches from the back of the house to the front, overlooking the canal. In my life I have learned well enough to curb envy, for it is the most unrewarding of all sins except perhaps for sloth, but now it comes gushing like bile into my mouth, so that it makes me almost sick to swallow it back. It is not that the room is rich. It isn’t. The decoration is modest: a couple of threadbare tapestries, coats of arms and weapons, some chests and seats, and two rusty hanging candelabras; old taste, bygone fashions. No. It is not the wealth, but the light. The room is alive with it, great, golden waves rolling through the windows off the canal, bathing the walls and gilded ceiling and shining off a terrazzo floor that is its own mosaic, made up of a thousand tiny chips of polished stone. We have been living in an underworld of dark stone and dank water for so long that I feel like a sewer rat exposed to the sun. I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with the wonder of it. Oh, if we could find ourselves somewhere like this, I swear I’d never complain again.

  “You like it? Puts Rome to shame, eh? Only God’s natural ingredients—space, sunlight, and stone. With a little help from the ingenuity of man. Venice, my friend. Heaven on earth. How did we ever live anywhere else? I’m afraid it is too early to eat, though I have the promise of a good fish for later. But I can offer you fruit and wine. Anfrosina!” he yells, though he doesn’t bother to wait till she answers. “Bring in that basket of winterberries that Count Manfredo sent us from the country. With a bottle of Signor Girolamo’s wine”—she pops up at the door, her eyes still full of me—“and proper crystal glasses, mind. For my guest is—as Plato said of Socrates—a short, ugly, but very wise man.”

  Anfrosina, who knows as little of Socrates and Plato as she does of me, simply giggles again and flees.

  “Your timing is excellent, Bucino. There is a great demand on the mainland for a proper work on the Catastrophe of Rome. With a big enough audience, it could shame the emperor into better behavior and the pope into more piety, for they are each as stubborn as the other. To which end I am gathering stories that I will weave into a tapestry of grief: my aim is to bring to life the huge party of death, in which, along with the ordinary Romans, the Curia, the priests, and the nuns suffered the worst.” He grins as he recalls my words. “See? Next time people say that Pietro Aretino doesn’t tell the truth, you remind them that he does not change a single word. So—let me pull out more threads of memory from that great fat head of yours. What, for example, was Fiammetta’s place in this? For I could tell from her face that her story must have been extraordinary.”

  A courtesan who welcomed the invaders and then lost her hair and part of her spirit to a group of harpy heretics—such a tale he might indeed have made up, though in his words it would no doubt become even more foul.

  “The story isn’t mine to tell. Ifyou want it, you must ask her.”

  “Oh! She will not talk to me. She is angry with me still. Ah! A woman’s rage: molten rock from a volcano, never to be stopped and taking forever to be cooled. You should counsel her, Bucino. She would listen to you. She would do better to settle this feud. We are all in exile together now, and while Venice has its fair share of beautiful women, few have her flair or her wit. And, believe me, this is a place ripe for rich living, liberty, honor, prosperity—”

  “So you are saying all over town, I hear. I hope you are making a fine salary out of all this civic toadyi
ng.”

  “Ha! Not yet, though I have great hopes that the doge will smile on me. He is very eager to hear his city praised in print.”

  The lovely Anfrosina appears with the fruit and the wine, making a meal of setting it on the table and being rewarded with a careless pat on her rump as she leaves. It strikes me that one would probably tire of her after a while. Though it would be fine enough to be given the chance. I put her out of my mind, for it is as well not to mix business with pleasure.

  He offers me first pick. “See how well my friends treat me? Baskets of fresh produce from the country. The best wines. I am more loved than I deserve.”

  “Maybe you are more feared.”

  “No. From now on Aretino is a man of peace, piety, and praise. Or for a while at least.” And he grins.

  I take a breath. “So there will be no poems of pricks and snatches and prelates sodomizing courtesans in Venice then. No more screwing until we die of it, in celebration of poor Adam and Eve, who brought the sin of shame upon us.”

  He stares at me. “Bucino! You have a better memory than I do. I did not know you were so fond of my work that you could quote it so eloquently.”

  “Well, it is my work too, in a manner of speaking.”

  “Indeed, it is. And as you know, I have the highest opinion of it, and I am sure I will return to it someday. For the time being, though, I am a reformed pen, giving my attention to more civic and spiritual concerns.”

  “Of course. So you wouldn’t know anything about a boatload of drunken louts outside our windows two nights ago.”

  He stops for a second. “Hmm. Has your lady been receiving admirers?”

  I say nothing.

  “Well, it is true that I sang her praises to a few who appreciate real beauty. But only because I miss her.”

  I keep my silence.

  “She is all right, though? I mean, there was no trouble? That’s not why you’re here, I hope. I wish her no ill, Bucino. You of all people know that.”

  And his posturing makes me feel better about what is to follow. “Actually,” I say, “I am here because I have a business proposal to discuss with you.”

  “Business. Ah.” And he reaches for the bottle and pours me some wine. It is pale gold, and the sunlight in the room plays through its bubbles. “I am listening.”

  “Something has come into my hands. A work of art, of considerable worth. It is a copy of Giulio’s Positions.” I pause again.

  “In the original engravings…”

  “The original! Marcantonio’s?”

  “Yes.” I am enjoying myself now. “And with ‘The Licentious Sonnets’ attached.”

  “But how? It’s not possible. Marcantonio’s plates were destroyed long before I put pen to paper.”

  “I cannot tell you how,” I say, “because, to be honest, I do not know. All I know is that I have them.”

  “Where did you get them?”

  I pick up a few more berries. They are a little sharp in my mouth, but it is early in the year, and the sun has not had time to sweeten them. “Let us say they came to me in the madness of the last days of Rome. When many people were on the run.”

  “Ascanio,” he mutters. “Of course, the little shit.”

  “If it is any consolation, he left Rome without the one volume that would have made his fortune.”

  He glances at me. “Where is it? Can I see it?”

  “Oh, I didn’t bring it with me. Its carnal sentiments would stain the streets of this pure city.”

  He grunts. “I see. What do you want from me, Bucino?”

  “I thought we might enter into a publishing venture together. With your connections, we could get them well copied and sell them around town. They would make our fortune.”

  “Yes,” he murmurs. “Your fortune and, at this moment, my disgrace.”

  “Ah. In which case, perhaps it would be better for me to sell them to a single collector. Someone of taste and influence. We are a little pressed for funds at the moment, and I think it possible we might get a few bids.”

  “Ooh—blackmail!” He takes a swig from his glass and watches me as he swallows. “I must say, I am disappointed. I had thought more highly of you.”

  I bow my head. “I learned everything I know from a man more talented than myself. A great writer who has earned his living spreading scandal. Or being paid not to.”

  And this time he laughs. “God’s blood, I do like you, Bucino. Bring the prints and your mistress here to live with me. Together we will rule Venice.”

  Again I stay silent.

  He sighs. “Alas, I could not support her anyway. For I have no money. That is the real problem with your plan, you see. This, all of this”—he moves his hand around the table and the room—“is as yet just the charity of friends.”

  “I don’t want money,” I say.

  “No? Then what do you want?”

  I take a breath. “I want you to find her a patron. A man with position and wealth. Someone who appreciates beauty and wit, and who will treat her well.”

  He sits back in his chair. “You know, I think it was for the best that she and I fell out all those years ago. For we would have found ourselves rivals otherwise, and I would have lost her in another way. Poor Fiammetta. Has it really been that hard?”

  “You have no idea,” I say.

  “Oh, I would not be so sure of that. There was a moment in an alley in Rome when I thought I heard death’s rider in the steps of the assassin who butchered my writing hand. And I have stood by and watched a man with a bigger soul than either of us beat his head against the wall to stop the agony of an amputated leg dragging him into death. I cried like a baby after he went, for he was one of my greatest friends.” He shakes his head. “I have no appetite for suffering, Bucino. I like pleasure too much. Sometimes I think I must have something of the woman in me. Which is why I love their company so. It will be my undoing. But I will make life run before it stops me. So, the demand is that I find her a good patron. Anything else?”

  “That you get her name into the Register of Courtesans. I will write the entry, and you will find one of your noble friends to put it in.”

  “No,” he says firmly. “That I will not do.”

  For a second I am not sure what to do. I squirm my way off the chair. “Then I will take the book elsewhere.”

  “Ah! Wait! If you claim to have learned from the master, then do not be so hasty. For men to make a bargain, there must be give and take on both sides. Sit down.”

  I sit.

  “The entry in the book I will find a way to do.” He makes me wait. “But the words will not be yours. They will be mine.”

  I stare at him. “And how do I know you will not cheat her?”

  “Because,” he says. “Because, because, because, Bucino, even when I exaggerate, I tell the truth. Especially about women. As you know only too well.”

  I stand up again.

  “And how do I know that you will keep to your end of the deal, and once she is settled and rich, I won’t wake up the next day to find copies of The Positions all around Venice with my name attached?”

  “Because, if you are loyal to her, then I will be loyal to you. As you know only too well.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Across the canal, our old bat is at her window, transfixed. The day is cooler now, and the same drafts that rattle our frames will be rattling hers too, but still she does not budge. Her face is set like thunder, and if she could manage to focus her roving eyes for long enough, I daresay we would feel the hammer of her disapproval, but we have our own witch to protect us and are too busy with the business of decorating young beauty to give much credence to soured age.

  La Draga and my mistress have been together since the early afternoon. I have not been allowed in until they are finished, and my job is to be impressed by what I see. As it happens, my capacity for dishonesty is barely stretched at all. She is so high in her clogs that I have to stand on the bed to get the full impression.
She is wearing the best of the secondhand dresses. It is made of a wild scarlet silk. Its sleeves are pale cream, gathered tight at the wrists before exploding into clouds of red at the elbows; its bodice is trimmed with gold to draw attention to the swooping neckline, and its skirts fall wide and billowing from a jeweled band under her breasts. It contains such a luxury of material that one might hope Aretino’s guests do not include the doge himself, for he has been known to send women home from gatherings when the lengths of cloth were so obviously excessive that it wouldn’t take a measuring tape to define them as outside the law.

  But no one would send my lady home. For the dress is just the wrapping. As for the woman inside, well, after this many years in her service, my compliments are threadbare with overuse. But I will offer a few words about her hair, some of which is not her own and therefore worthy of criticism, and which has been coaxed and teased into a dozen feathery curls at her brow and a few flying ringlets around her cheeks, with the rest of it falling in slow, rolling waves from what looks like a braided band of her own tresses set halfway back on her head. I close my eyes to see the imprint of her on the backs of my lids, and the air is filled with the smell of musk roses and the promise of summer.

  “Well?” I open my eyes onto her question. “You could at least say something. We’ve been at this all day. A few lines of Petrarch perhaps? Or that other man you are so fond of quoting. What is his name? Something about the way my lady eclipses sunlight and joy?”

  But she is so confident that I will not please her without some fun first. I keep my gaze as empty as I can manage. “You smell nice,” I say flatly. “If the dress and the hair don’t work, we could always ask them to close their eyes.”

  “Bucino!” She throws a redundant hair comb at me, and I glance in La Draga’s direction in time to see what could almost be a smile passing over her ghostly face as she gathers up her pots and picks up her shawl, ready to leave. I watch the concentration in her face as she walks to the door, each step already marked out in her head.