In the Company of the Courtesan: A Novel

by Sarah Dunant

  I said once that if we found ourselves living in a house with an abundance of light, I would never complain again. And I swear I do not do so now. It is true that I work harder on our success than I did on our failure. It is also true that my lady and I are no longer as close in triumph as we were in adversity. Of course. Her day is my night, which means that when she sleeps I am mostly at work, and the times when we are in public together we are careful to play mistress and servant rather than comrades. While our clients are less vulgar than some, a trade such as ours is always greedy for the gossip of perversion, and the cohabitation of beauty and beast is safer as a Platonic notion than as an Aretino-type sonnet. Should I choose to feel excluded, which I have done sometimes, for I too have my moods, I remind myself that the harvest is always the busiest time for the farmer, and there will be space enough for leisure later, when age and fashion make our trade less brisk.

  For now, between us, we run a thriving business, as complex and demanding as many others on which the city builds her wealth. With Rome struggling to rebuild herself and Florence a shadow of her former glorious self, Venice has become Europe’s great metropolis for travelers: a haven for shoppers, businessmen, and pleasure seekers, all of them eager to sample whatever she has to offer. And high on the list are the charms of her professional women. So much so that there is almost a whiff of the old Rome to her now, and the gossip is that respectable women can barely get into the church on a Sunday these days, such is the crush of new courtesans showing off their wares.

  In public, the old doge’s face shows all the signs of a man with a permanent bad smell in his nostrils. I daresay disapproval will become state policy before too long—the wheel always turns full circle—but for now sinning is still as profitable as goodness, and so we make hay all year round. The spring months are our busiest time though, for it is then that ships prepare to depart again and the pilgrims gather in readiness for the Holy Land. Once they have glutted themselves on relics (Venice has enough bones to create a small army of semiribbed saints), you would be surprised how many of them give in to an extra sin or two before setting sail on the journey that will absolve them.

  As in Rome, I am both the housekeeper and the gatekeeper. I mark down each and every soldo that comes in and goes out, since, when the bedroom door is closed, all kinds of rats can nibble at the kitchen supplies, and we both know of rich whores who died in poverty because of bad housekeeping. In the same way, no one enters or leaves the house without my knowledge. We do not entertain German heretics, for my lady’s memory is as long as her hair was once short, and we are careful with passing trade, for while it is sorely tempting to slip foreign visitors in along with the regulars (Aretino’s fulsome entry into the Register of Courtesans has brought all manner of rich trade to our door), doing so has its dangers. The pox brought by the French into Florence and Naples forty years ago is now a full-blown plague of the loins, and while you can refuse sick men, it is harder to spot the disease before it breaks the surface. La Draga has drafts and ointments for the lesser brands of itch and heat, and whatever we think of each other, I cannot doubt the efficacy of her remedies. Among her many talents, she is known to be able to rid a woman of a child while it is still in liquid shape in the womb. This is one skill that thus far we have had no need of. For it seems that my lady does not conceive, or at least she never has while I have known her. Had her mother been less ambitious and used her savings to sell her daughter into marriage to a tailor or a shipbuilder, her barrenness would have proved a more defining badge than her beauty. As it is, I think it brings her some sadness now, as there are women in her profession who have a room full of cots by the time they are her age, and while their children will not inherit titles, the city is full of rich men who are fond enough of their bastards to do them favors to help them make their way in life.

  It is my job to meet all new customers before they see her and to settle their bills. In this way, I hope to sift out impostors or troublemakers. The worst are the men who use their fists as well as their pricks. Of course, no courtesan earns her living without some punches or bruises. That is a given. There are some men who cannot do it at all unless they have to fight for it a little, while others can be so overwhelmed by the sin that they have to inflict a little punishment as they take the pleasure. But these you can usually spot with their clothes on, for their lust vibrates with anxiety. My concern is with those I cannot read, the men who hold the violence inside them until the door is closed or the first bottle is drunk. I have seen it enough to know that there are a few for whom it is natural, as if they were born preferring the taste of meat over fish, and the devil in their loins is fed less by the act than by the pain they cause and the excitement they get from the causing of it.

  In such matters, it’s to our advantage that our cook has fists like ham bones and a temperament to go with them, and that Marcello, the boatman, while he is the gentlest of men, is built like a warrior with a roar like the echo in a cave. In these last few years we have had to use their respective talents only once, and that time my lady was more scared than harmed, for we got to her within seconds of her screams. The man in question ended up in the canal with a broken arm and rib. While I have no doubt he might try it again, he would find it harder to do so in Venice, for though the security police might overlook such offenses (the world is full of women who go to the altar having been forced by their husbands as a last resort in courtship), there is a word-of-mouth register for such offenders among the best-known courtesans in the city.

  As to my lady. Well, her moods notwithstanding, she shines bright enough at present, enlivened by fresh blood and gifts. She has been in business now for fourteen years all told, and will be twenty-nine on her next birthday. Which makes her no longer young for her trade—it is rare to find a successful courtesan over thirty who admits to her real age—though she still looks fresh enough for us to keep her age at twenty-two for the new visitors.

  In this way we have made up all that we lost in Rome, and while I still fear high tides and yearn sometimes for the coarser energy of the Romans, you could say that we are secure here.

  Indeed, you could say we are content.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I am deep into the books when a message comes from our Crow Loredan’s man: the great senator is delayed on business about the Sensa and will not be able to make it tonight, which leaves us free to entertain our generous glass merchant after all. I use the news as a reason to close my books. The ordering of numbers has calmed my self-hatred a little, and before I contact Alberini I should inform my lady.

  Tiziano’s house and studio are to the north across the Grand Canal near Rio di Santa Caterina, and while the walk is brisk, the day is spring sweet and the exercise will do me good.

  Tiziano himself, about whom I fear I was a little casual that first evening because I did not know any better, is far and away Venice’s most celebrated artist, so famous now that the paint is barely dry on his canvases before they are crated off on boats and mule trains to the courts of half of Europe. For such a great man, I must say he remains refreshingly half peasant. He is as active with his abacus as he is with his brush (he and I share a natural affinity when it comes to ideas for wringing money out of recalcitrant clients), and while I don’t doubt he will go down in history for the fineness of his paint, my memories of his house have more to do with the smells from his kitchen, for he and Aretino both love their food, and their cooks often compete to produce the best dishes. Also like Aretino, he has a healthy fondness for women. This is the second time my lady has sat for him. If she has done more than sit, then she has not told me about it, and I have not asked, though when his beloved wife, Cecilia, died a few years ago she may have comforted him then, as I know he grieved sorely.

  I cross the Grand Canal at the Rialto. I can almost see Aretino’s house from here. He too has prospered. He toyed for a while with going to live at the French court but instead spent a season of Lent in deep and public penance while at the
same time dashing off such paeans of praise to his newly adopted city that Doge Gritti was moved to intervene on his behalf, and in this way he was reconciled with both the pope and his old enemy the duke of Mantua. His rise was fast after that, and he is now one of the city’s treasures. In public he sports a chain of gold received from the king of France, his letters circulate among the cognoscenti, and Venice is full of people eager to treat him well as a way to keep him from treating them badly.

  He and my lady have forged an unexpected friendship over these years. The flame that once burned in them both has faded to the warmth of embers. Success has brought him enough women to fawn and fiddle over him without needing her attention, and, to be honest, I think both of them live so much of their private lives being public that they are grateful for the company of someone who knows them from the inside out and with whom they do not have to perform. When they are not gossiping, they are fond of games of chance, which have become all the rage in Venice now, and sometimes the three of us play together on idle afternoons, turning over painted cards with a dozen different capricious futures written on them. For our part, we have stuck to the bargain and for all these years have kept The Positions out of the public domain. With no children in the nursery, it has become our insurance against the bankruptcy of old age.

  I skirt the Campo dei Santi Apostoli and head due north through a cobweb of alleys. Wealth gives way to poverty as I move, and I keep my head down now and my purse close to my chest. In contrast to the area around, Tiziano’s house, perched on the very edge of the lagoon, is a statement of status, new and rather grand. On a clear day you can see as far as Monte Ante-lao in Cadore from here, which I am sure is why he chose it, for he is a sentimental fellow when it comes to memories of his native town.

  His housekeeper opens the door and shows me into the garden to wait, while she tells my mistress that I am here. I sit and massage my legs, for the journey has numbed my thighs. The water is so close here that you can hear the waves slapping against the shoreline. Though Venice will never be Rome to me, there is a certain melancholy beauty to the way she flirts with the sea, like a lovely woman lifting up her decorated skirts—sometimes not far enough—to miss the rising tides. On days like today, when the water is shining and the air is sticky with the scent of jasmine and peach blossom, you can almost imagine you are in Paradise. As sweet as Arcadia. Wasn’t that the phrase her mother used with her as a child when she would try to describe the smells of a rich man’s garden? It was those same words my lady had used to tempt me onward that first day in Venice, when our future felt as black as her bloodied scalp. As I think this, I am struck with great force by the memory, as if it is only now, here, at this moment, after all this time, that I feel we are truly arrived at where we set out to be. And inside the wonder of the feeling, there is also a sense of terror—yes, terror—that we have risen so far and that there is, therefore, so far to fall.

  Her voice, when it comes, makes me jump.

  “Bucino! I thought you were tied to your abacus.”

  I turn to see her dressed in a robe as if she has just risen from her bed. Her hair is long and free down her back. He has especially requested her to wear it in the same style as when they first met. While even I must admit that she is not as fresh as she was then, the braided band of hair and the mischief of tiny curls playing around her forehead still bring out the girl in the woman.

  “I was, but a message arrived.”

  “It had better be important. Tiziano rumbles like thunder when he is interrupted.”

  “It isn’t finished yet? I thought this was the last sitting.”

  She laughs. “Oh, it will never be finished. At least not to his satisfaction. I will be old before he puts his brush down.”

  “Well, you look young enough now.”

  “Really? You think so?” And she twirls around so that her hair flows with her. How she drinks it up, flattery. Feeds on it, grows from it, like a plant moving toward the light, as if she can never get enough. “You do not compliment me so much these days, Bucino.”

  “I cannot get a word in between all the other voices.”

  She pouts a little, a device that has more impact on her suitors than on me. But then I know her better, and, unlike them, I have caught her hard at work with her hand mirror, and the look she gives herself there has little enough of flattery to it. Given my time again, I no longer know if I would choose beauty over ugliness. There is too much anxiety in its fragility.

  “So tell me, what is the message?”

  “Loredan is caught up with Sensa business and will not visit tonight after all.”

  “Oh.” She gives a shrug as if it is of no particular import, though I can see she is pleased. “Then perhaps we might send a message to Vittorio Foscari,” she says lightly. “I know he would be happy to join me instead.”

  “I’m sure he would. But we are committed first to Alberini for his generosity.”

  She groans. “Oh, of course, Alberini.” And she wrinkles her nose. “But we told him already we were busy. He would never know. His and Foscari’s paths never cross.”

  Indeed they don’t, since one of them works for a living and the other lives off his family. Though I choose not to mention that. “Why don’t you give Foscari time to recover?” I say.

  She laughs and takes it as a compliment, but that is only half true. He is something of a challenge to me, this Foscari. He is both our newest and our youngest suitor. A Crow by birth, he is as yet still a half-feathered fledgling, but once he takes off his patterned stockings, he is so new to the pleasures of his own prick that he seems to exhaust them both with his ardor and his chatter. Of course, every courtesan needs to be adored sometimes, and his worship has made her gay enough. He arrived in the wake of an affair with a gizzard-necked Florentine scholar who huffed and puffed so much that it was hard to tell if he was coming soon or going forever. While I had been careful to negotiate payment by the hour, I don’t doubt that Foscari’s fresh, firm flesh was pleasant enough contrast. Yet this young Crow has proved a disaster when it comes to business, for he does not control his own fortune, exceeds his allowance, and is not smart enough to know how to get himself more.

  “You know he still owes us for half a dozen meetings last month.”

  “Oh, Bucino. You worry too much. He is from one of the best families in the city.”

  “Which keeps its money for the elder sons rather than him. They paid for his deflowering, not for him to keep a mistress. Business would be better served by a sweet thank-you to Alberini.”

  “Really—I don’t need you to lecture me on what would be best for business,” she mutters irritably. “I think I would prefer to entertain Foscari.”

  “As you wish. But if he comes, he must pay. Our charity to him is already a matter for gossip in the house, and if we are not careful, it will be around the city that we are giving away what others are charged for. And you know the damage that can cause.”

  She shrugs. “I have heard no gossip.”

  “That is because you have the door closed,” I say gently. “And I have been snoring louder than usual to cover up the noise.”

  I smile so that we might find a way to make it up through my quip. But she chooses not to take the olive branch.

  “Oh, very well! If you are so insistent, then he had better not come. Even so, I will not entertain Alberini. I shall use the time to rest instead. It is not nothing, you know, sitting here all day like a living statue while Tiziano fusses and fiddles with his brushes.”

  I look at her for a moment, but she drops her gaze. “Ooh, this jasmine,” she says extravagantly, burying her nose in its blossom. “There is no perfume like it in the world. I have tried to buy this scent on the Rialto a dozen times, but it never lasts longer than a few minutes once it is out of the bottle.”

  “It is very sweet, yes,” I murmur, impressed by how quickly she has moved the subject on, for this is not the first time we have crossed swords over this pup. “Sweet as Arcadi
a.”

  And she looks at me and smiles again, as if there is something that she cannot quite remember. “Arcadia? Yes, I suppose it is.”

  “I don’t care how much they’re offering, you can’t have her, Bucino.” Tiziano is at the door. “I was promised the whole day, and I need every minute of it.”

  “Don’t worry, maestro. You are safe enough. I came only to deliver a message.”

  “Some randy old man wants her tonight, eh? It’s a shame—she’ll be missing a roasted loin of pork dripping with apple juices. Come, Fiammetta, the light is perfect. I need you back now.”

  “One moment and I will be there.” It is clear that she is relieved to be pulled away. Her smile to me is fast, distracted. “I will see you later, Bucino.” The fact that she does not tell me when she will return shows how peeved with me she is over Foscari. She leaves, and he makes to follow her. But it has been a long walk from there to here, and I may not get this chance again for months. “Tiziano?”

  He turns.

  “Now that I’m here, can I see the painting?”

  “No! It isn’t finished yet.”

  “But I thought this was her last sitting.”

  “It isn’t ready,” he repeats stubbornly.

  “It is only that dwarves have weak hearts.” I smile. “I have it on good authority that I could be dead within the year.”

  He scowls, but I know he likes me well enough, or as much as he likes anyone while he is working. “What has she told you about it?”