In the Company of the Courtesan: A Novel

by Sarah Dunant

  “Wonders what? Oh, Pietro, you of all people don’t believe the gossip, do you?”

  “Hmm! I told you. He has got a way about him.”

  “And you have a mind that thrives on such base things.”

  “Ah, to this sin I plead guilty. So tell me.”

  “No! You, unlike him, have no loyalty. It’s true, isn’t it? The rumor that you are penning filth again?”

  “Oh, no…not filth, carina. I would call it more an investigation into the various professions of love.”

  “Let me guess. In the nunnery and the whorehouse.”

  “I…More or less. But I promise I will never write a word about your beloved dwarf.”

  “And me? Will you write about me?”

  “If I do, no one will recognize you.”

  “They had better not. If you betray—”

  “Sweet lady, I am a slave. To both of you. You know that. We Roman adventurers must stick together.”

  “Oh, so you are a Roman again. I thought you were become a full-fledged Venetian. You lie as well as they do.”

  “Oh, that’s a little harsh. It’s true that when I write about Venice I embroider a little. But this city likes to look good in the mirror. Have you read Contarini’s history? Compared with his Venice, Athens would be a failed state.”

  It’s true. It would. And it is to my great wonder that I can think straight about it now without being chewed up by pain. Still, everybody knows that Contarini is as much flattery as truth. Ah! God help me, I am back in the world with things to say, even if there is no energy yet to do the saying.

  “Of course the city thrives on praise. Rome was the same. All that marble so the world would be dazzled by the shine. The difference is, the Aretino I knew then was more interested in exposing the dirt underneath. Why don’t you spice the flattery with the tartness of truth, Pietro? Or have you really grown so soft on good living?”

  Ah, my lady. How I have missed you!

  “Hmm. I was young in Rome and didn’t mind getting my ass kicked so much and I like Venice better. It works for its living, and its sins are more forgivable. Still, we must be careful. We could be seen as its corruption too, carina, and I would be a fool to bring the temple down upon our own heads. No, I will let it be known that my new work is a comment on the old Rome, and thus will I go down in history as a consummate chronicler of life. For when I write about such things—about the dance between men and women—then I do indeed tell it as it is, unvarnished, the whole truth.”

  “Oh, please! ‘Ooh, ooh, put your prick in my ass again, ooh, for I am aflame, and all the pizzles of mules, asses, and oxen would not diminish my lust, even a little.’ ” And her voice is silly and fluttery with fake desire. “Really, if you think that is the truth about women, Pietro, then you are more addled than your years. You simply write what you think men want to hear. And I warrant a good many of them aren’t even thinking of women’s bodies as they read it. What was the name of that boy you liked so well at the court in Mantua?”

  “Ah, Fiammetta Bianchini! What a mouth you have on you. I should be grateful you have no urge to become a scribe yourself. But who could resist you? I tell you, if I were a marrying man—”

  “—you would not marry me. God help us both. We would be strung up in San Marco for murder soon enough.”

  “You are right. It is better this way.”

  They are both laughing now. There is silence for a moment, yet it feels comfortable enough to me, the silence of old friends. Of which I am one. I am tired now and much in need of water, but I fear to break the spell; while there have been times in the past where my size has allowed me to hear conversations going on above my head, those conversations have never been about myself. What price the fame and riches of a Turkish court compared with this?

  “Well, since you evidently know so much about these things, tell me about his ‘special powers.’ ”

  “First you swear to me that you won’t put me in your book.”

  “I promise that I will never use your name. On my heart.”

  “You would do better to swear on your prick.”

  “I must say, Fiammetta, for a woman who has had no sleep for the best part of a week, you are very lively.”

  “Why not? ‘My deformity,’ as you call him, is getting better.”

  “So?”

  “Actually, it is simple enough. You are right. He is not like other men. But it is not so much his ‘size’—and do not snigger, for I have never seen his prick nor ever will—as you well know, that is not how it is between us. Bucino has a way with women, as you call it, because he enjoys their company. Not just for the pleasure they give but for and of themselves. He is not frightened of us, and he does not need to impress or possess us—and you would be amazed, Pietro, how few men that is true of. All I know is that ever since I first met him at that stupid banker’s house where he was pretending to be a jester and failing, I have felt more comfortable with him than with any other man I have ever met. Yes, you included.”

  Her voice has grown a little louder. She should be careful, or she might wake me.

  “So. Does that answer your question?”

  “Absolutely. His secret is that he is a woman!”

  Their laughter is so infectious now that I struggle to keep my breathing even, not to join in, and my throat is so dry I cannot swallow and I want to cough.

  “Shhh…our voices will wake him. You may laugh at the idea, but I tell you, for all your skill with words, you will never know what that feels like. Remember that, if you can, next time you put your pen to paper.”

  And this time when I swallow, as I must or I will choke, I make a noise, though I think it is covered by their laughter.

  There is a pause. “You don’t think he could have been awake all this time, do you?”

  “Ha!” She stops, and they listen some more. But I swear I am silent as the grave now.

  I think I hear her move again, though until she speaks I do not know to where.

  “Well, if he is,” she says, and her voice comes from directly above me now, so close that I feel again her breath on my face,

  “then I could tell him how much I have missed him. Not just these last few days either, but for the longest while. How without his voice in my ear I have at times fallen prey to melancholy and looked for reassurance in places where the gaining of it could only hurt me more. Ah, you would be surprised, Pietro, the ways in which success can be as painful as failure.” I hear the sigh she gives and the breath she takes in after it. “And after I had said all that, I would add that he should hurry back to health, for the latest news is that his troublesome fledgling is due to take wing for Crete next month to be initiated into the family trade, away from the temptations of the city. A migration that will makes us—some of us—sad.” She pauses. “Though I think we will survive.”

  “Ah! Such poetry, Fiammetta, and from the woman who despises whores who compose. Perhaps you could translate it into plain language for me?”

  She laughs. “Oh. It is nothing. Just women’s chatter. And, since he is an honorary woman, I am sure that even if he is listening, he will be modest enough not to let me know he has heard. Isn’t that so, Bucino?” And she raises her voice a little.

  I take a long breath in, hold it for a second, and slowly, slowly, slowly, let it out again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The tang of Mauro’s spiced sauce over boiled eels. How the room stays still when I stand up in it. The way my ear can distinguish birdsong from the crunch and slap of the water through the thick-eyed glass of my study window. These are the joys of a world where I am no longer in pain. And, most of all, the fact that the household has fallen into palpable disarray in my absence.

  Alas, there is no time to celebrate, for my recovery coincides with the busiest of times. This week sees the climax of the Ascension Festival: the ceremony of the Sensa, when the whole government of Venice rides out in a great golden galley into the middle of the lagoon, from where
the doge, himself arrayed in gold cloth, hurls a wedding ring into the depths, thus marrying the city to the sea (guess which is the bridegroom and which the obedient bride?) and securing Venice’s dominion over the waters for another year. Who could ever believe that Constantinople holds more wonders than Venice?

  This ceremonial madness and the great trade fair that accompanies it have the city bursting at the seams, but this year, this year, we are doubly blessed. For our black Crow, Loredan, has done penance for his endless pomposity by securing my lady a place on one of the barges that follow the procession, a privilege of such magnitude that the whole house is now awash in dresses and dressmakers, shoes and shoemakers, perfumes and perfumers, and all the paraphernalia of beauty that it takes to put our own small, golden ship to sea.

  Marcello and Gabriella are at my constant beck and call, Mauro is so long over a stove that I fear his sweat has become one of his spices (though I do not complain, for since my illness I am fed better than the clients), and as for my lady, well, I do not know if my breathing convinced her of my sleeping or my wakefulness, but there has been no further discussion between us, no baring of souls or asking for forgiveness. Instead we are partners again and are healing ourselves with what we do best, working together and making the house sing with its sense of community.

  This is not to say she is without sorrow: her melancholy is evident to anyone who knows her well. The latest news on the pup is that he is due to leave in a few weeks. His visits are less frequent (I do not know about the nights, for since my illness I sleep like the dead), and where possible when he is due I give the servants time off so he and my lady might have a kind of privacy together. We both know that when he leaves, she—and I suspect he too, for such fevers seldom burn so hot without both partners sharing the disease—will feel the separation acutely. But we will deal with that pain when it comes; for now we are reconciled, she and I, with our minds set on her journey to sea and all that it entails.

  From all of this creative mayhem, there is only one person missing: La Draga. Since that night when I woke to her presence in the room, she has not visited. When it was clear that I was on my way to recovery, she left a series of oils and drafts with Gabriella for my continued welfare and disappeared into the dawn, and no one has heard from her since. Despite our busyness, the house is not the same without her. At night sometimes when I close my eyes, I can hear her voice as if it were still inside me, and the memory of her care makes me shaky with its intensity. Though my lady would profit from her presence and potions now, I daresay she is too occupied to visit, for when people in this city stop working, they start mating, and those whom she is not helping to marry she may soon be helping to abort. But I know only too well that it is she who saved my life, and wherever she is I have no intention of forgetting my debt to her.

  It is the morning of the Sensa, and the whole house and a fair slice of the neighborhood gather to see my lady and me step into our boat, duly decorated for the occasion. Marcello cuts a sleek and clever line through the massing traffic on the Grand Canal to drop us near the edge of the southern docks, from where we must walk to the main landing dock near San Marco.

  It is a journey I have done often enough before, when the sun is not yet fully risen and the city is still asleep, and there is always a sense of awe in it. After you have made the long turn out of the Grand Canal and draw parallel with the Doge’s Palace, among the first things that you see from the water are the great Pillars of Justice, standing out like high masts through the early mist. And more often than not, as you get closer there is the broken corpse of some offender between them, left hanging as an example to the city. Such is the aching bleakness of this scene that I have come to believe the entrance to Hell will be through those pillars, with us all marching in silent, serried ranks into the steaming mist beyond.

  Only now, today, Hell has been turned to Heaven. The Mass is over, and the fleet is boarding. Those same pillars are festooned with streamers, and the scene all around them is like the Second Coming, with the righteous leading the way clothed in God’s glory and—more important—Venice’s best cloth. There is more gold here than in any altarpiece I have ever seen. Even women are allowed to join this show, and modesty is replaced by fabulous ostentation. The ground around them is a sea of silk and velvet so the sun barely knows where to shine first, caught on miles of golden thread and a thousand necklaces, rings, chains, and jeweled hair clips.

  The golden galley is anchored in the middle of the water, already loaded with its cargo of black and ermine-trimmed Crows and foreign dignitaries, and the spectator barges are filling up fast. To reach the special landing docks, each and every guest must have his or her name on a list. My journey stops here.

  My lady turns to me as she moves into the throng. “What shall I bring you back, Bucino? A mermaid, or another great Crow to boost our account books?”

  I shrug. “Maybe you might find something to ease the gap that will be left by your fledgling?”

  “Aaah.” And I hear the catch in her throat, as if the pain is still lodged somewhere, too raw to digest. “Alas, for that I would need very rich food.” She stops and tilts her head away. The noise is rising around us. Soon it will be too late for speech. She turns back to me. “Bucino? The things I said…about you that night. I want—”

  “No. No, you don’t,” I say. “We were both demented, and your words were nothing to the cruelty of mine. But it’s over now. Lost on the wind. Look at you. I am so proud of you. The most spectacular bird in the flock. Don’t let the others peck at you out of envy.”

  She smiles. “And you—what will you do with the day?”

  “Me?” I say. “Oh, I will—” But the push of bodies is already drawing her away, and my reply gets lost in the crowd. I watch as best I can as she moves toward the boats. The women eye each other as they head for their places—they always behave the worst when they are dressed the best—and while there are those intent on cold-shouldering her, it is more because my lady is a stranger than because she looks like a whore. Indeed, if they were all lined up in our portego now, there are at least a dozen who would be propositioned before she would, so much have they piled on the white powder and the flouncing style. In contrast, she looks like a noblewoman. The smile that she gives as she turns and waves to me from the loading plank tells me that she knows it too.

  I close my eyes so that can I etch the scene on the backs of my lids, and for that second I wish more than anything that I had been born Tiziano Vecellio so I might run home now and re-create it, for the details are already fading. The image of my lady, though, stays clear enough. I wave until I am pushed out of the way, and then I scamper through the crowd out of the madness of the piazza toward San Lorenzo and the north shore.

  In my pocket I have directions to the campo where La Draga lives, or at least the place where Marcello leaves messages for her when she is needed. For that is my day: I am going to find her. After all these years, it is time we made our peace.

  It is my first time on the streets since my illness, and despite my high spirits, my limbs tremble faster, so that I have to rest more often. Still, I am not worried. I am alive and with luck will soon be fitter than I was before, for the fever has stripped away a layer of fat that good living had added to my stomach; every dwarf I have ever known has the appetite of a full-sized man, so that as we grow older, even those without greed are prone to corpulence.

  Anyway, what need is there to rush on this of all days? The city is on holiday, and so am I. The streets are quiet here, since the crowds have all drained south to watch the fleet embark, and the scent of garden blossoms is in the air. For a few weeks now, Venice will be glorious, before the summer sun burns everything crisp and putrid again, and I, perhaps, will find time to enjoy it.

  “When did you last have pleasure, eh, Bucino? When did you last play, or laugh until your sides hurt? When did you last have a woman, for that matter? Success has turned you sour. You live in that room bent over your abacus and
your account books like some spider over her filthy eggs. Where is the life in that?”

  I have thought about her words many times since that night. How could I not? When a man thinks he going to die, there is always room to regret the mistakes he has made, the things he has not done. She is right. While my clothes may be as rich as they were in Rome, our success has also been my failure. It is partly that the novelty is gone. She has little need of me to entertain her guests now, and I, in turn, have grown weary of being treated like an imbecile or an exotic by men, most of whom, if their purses were the same size as their brains, would not be eligible for either of our company. Even our cleverest clients do not excite me in the way our salon in Rome once did. In this respect I turned against Venice early. While Rome stewed in her own corruption, she was at least honest enough to enjoy herself openly. Yet here they are so concerned with making the surface shine that all transgression must be tucked away, the sins not even fully enjoyed before they are repented or suppressed. In my experience, such hypocrisy is a breeding ground as much for prurience as for pleasure.

  Or perhaps I am fooling myself, plucking reasons from the air to excuse my own misanthropy. For it is true that I am duller than I was. And, yes, more celibate; and while a man does not die of such neglect, neither does he flourish. What can I do? Aretino may envy me my skills, but they are less effective here than they were in Rome. There are, alas, no mischievous matrons with an appetite for novelty in these markets, and the streets are too near the canals for me to stomach the smell of most of the women who work them: relief and pleasure may be the same for most men, but I am a dwarf and too attuned to nuances of humiliation for it to work that way for me. There was a time when my enjoyment of Anfrosina’s curves and her capacity for giggling could pull her out of the kitchen and into the bedroom. But the satisfaction gained there seldom lasted beyond the moment, and while there have been a few others along the way, these last years I have grown proud (or maybe shamed) enough to think I could do better. Perhaps the truth is I have become cynical. When one is in the business of slaking male desire, it is hard not to develop a certain contempt for the very appetite one is manipulating.