by Karen Brooks
Suddenly, he rose from the bed. At first, I thought it was to use the chamber pot. But he searched the floor and began to pull up his leggings.
‘Giacomo,’ I said, and patted the bed beside me. ‘Where are you going? It’s not time for me to leave yet. The sun has not risen.’
‘I know.’ He smiled sweetly as he buttoned his shirt. ‘But you, cara mia, still have work to do.’
Before I could react, he went the door and flung it open. In walked the other men I had dined with – Giacomo’s friends.
‘What’s this?’ I cried and grabbed the sheet to cover my modesty.
It registered with me that they’d removed their coats and as they stood, drinks in hand, that they were not decently attired.
‘Consider my debts repaid, gentlemen,’ said Giacomo, gesturing to the bed, to me. Without a backward glance, he left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him. As one, they stepped closer.
Rambaldo Errizo was the first.
Hours passed and I fell inside myself, into a great dark void. I tried to take hold of something, anything that would get me through. I found what I was searching for in the tenebrous recesses of my soul. Once I did, I didn’t let it go.
I WAS ALONE WHEN SALZI FINALLY found me, wound in Giacomo’s bedding like a shroud. I couldn’t talk. I had no words. He picked up my torn camicia and stockings, my zoccoli, and helped me dress in my splendid gown. Unable to walk down the stairs, I was aware of him wrapping me in my cloak and lifting me into his arms.
The ride home took an eternity, the beauty of the sky mocking the ugliness that rested in my heart.
Giaconda came straight to my room. She took one look at my hollow eyes, the bite marks across my upper arms, my breasts and shoulders, at the accusation in my eyes, only now free of their mask, uninhibited by the belladonna. She turned away.
‘Don’t you dare look at me like that!’ she snapped, her voice breaking. It was the first time I’d ever heard her lose control. ‘I will send Hafeza. You will not be able to work for a few days. I will charge Moronisini for that.’
I don’t know what my face revealed, but Giaconda made a terrible sound; it came from somewhere deep inside. ‘What did you expect? Flowers and romance? You’re a courtesan, Tarlo. Your body is for the pleasure of others – whatever form that pleasure might take. It’s not your own anymore. Take the anger you feel and use it, use it to topple these nobiles who would use you in such a way.’
I waited till she left the room and then I ran to the window and shoved it open. I inhaled the cold morning air, but all I could feel was them. Against my body, on my body, in my body. I could hear them, smell them, taste them …
I leant out as far as I could and lost the contents of my stomach, heaving into the waters. I watched it fall and splatter. Again and again I vomited. Finally, nothing came out but noise, guttural, primitive and loud. The sound of my wretchedness echoed up and down the canal, resounded in my head, through my being. Hollow. That’s what I was.
I turned back into the room, gripping the sill, and fumbled in the dresser drawer. I reached for the harlequin and squeezed it in my hand, panting.
That was how Hafeza found me, minutes later, squatting in the corner beneath the window, sobbing over the tiny glass statuette.
I didn’t hear her come in. She knelt down beside me and reached out.
‘Don’t touch me!’ I cried.
She withdrew her hand sharply. I could feel her shock, her compassion. I didn’t want it. I couldn’t have it. Not anymore. I didn’t deserve it.
‘Don’t ever touch me,’ I screamed as my body, wracked with pain and sobs, slowly curled into a ball against the floor.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare
Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5
WINTER BOWED FAREWELL GRACEFULLY, the snow melting into spring, revealing the colour and life made dormant by the bitter cold. Birds busied themselves mating, flowers began to bloom and the markets were filled with the wares of enthusiastic merchants, keen to resume trading now warmer weather tamed the storms and calmed the rough seas. With the balmy evenings came invitations to private dinners, parties, recitals, theatre, opera and exclusive casinos. Not a day went past when either the land or water entrances of the Maleovellis’ casa weren’t receiving notes, gifts and even visitors. Selective about with whom Tarlo should and shouldn’t mix, the Maleovellis would deliberate before accepting. It was important that to whomever Tarlo gave her services, they also had the potential to offer more than soldi in return. Tallow let her benefactors organise her life, satisfied to go where they told her, dine and sleep with whomever she was instructed. They were pleased with her silent compliance, choosing not to question or explore the reasons behind it.
By mid-summer, Signorina Dorata was a regular on the party circuit and her evenings were filled with flirtatious conversations, long, languorous looks across laden dinner tables and sweet vinos, all unfolding against a backdrop of grand salons, exquisitely dressed men and women, the heady strains of music and flickering candles.
Her name spread throughout Serenissima, and sightings of her were reported as eagerly and with as much excitement as the comets that would occasionally arc their way across the firmament. Like the celestial bodies to which she was frequently compared, Tarlo Maleovelli dazzled those with whom she came in contact. Appearing only occasionally during the day, and then always hidden behind a golden mask, she truly shone at night. Wherever she was heading, whichever nobile was enjoying her charms, the path to his casa, whether paved by water or stones, would be lined with the popolani, sighing in pleasure as they glimpsed their city’s newest treasure, or threw favours at her feet, tucked as they were in their impossibly high zoccoli, beneath her glinting dress as she sat straight-backed in the prow of the gondola. She would neither wave nor acknowledge any gesture; her lips remained curled in a fixed position, her eyes modestly lowered, though everyone who saw her swore she smiled for them alone.
It was rumoured that Doge Dandolo kept a room in the palazzo just for his assignations with the mysterious beauty, that even his sons, the Princes, who also enjoyed her favours, were forced to find alternate venues for their encounters. It was said that one night with Signorina Dorata was worth every golden ducat she charged; that she was incomparable in her skills, conversation, and the pleasure she gave. Nobiles went to almost any length to secure her services – offered, spent and exhausted fortunes to be able to say they had spent a night in the golden beauty’s arms.
Would-be lovers penned ardent promises, poems were published describing her charms in metaphors and impossible similes. Artists denied permission to paint her nonetheless used their imagination, and images of her were soon hanging in casas and scuolas around Serenissima.
As friend, lover or enchanting companion, Signorina Dorata’s fame grew and spread, even out to the furthest of Serenissima’s colonies, including newly acquired lands in the Contested Territories of Judea; so too did her price. Some called her an enchantress; others less kind a witch. Men were entranced by her, while to their wives she was the enemy they loathed and to their daughters the woman they longed to be. It was said that even young novitiates from the Convent di Redentore made a pilgrimage to Nobiles’ Rise in the hope they would see her.
Signor Maleovelli and Giaconda basked in Tarlo’s reputation and were modest about the soldi they were acquiring. Colleganzas were struck, debts repaid, and the Maleovellis’ social standing rapidly rose. Whereas once they were remembered mainly for their lost fortune and status and for their absence from many a nobile’s table, now they enjoyed one for business acumen and for possessing an eye for potential.
When Jacopo returned from the Contested Territories and, inexplicably, the Moronisinis forwent any of the profit made in the risky venture in order to enter into a new colleganza with the Maleovellis, many were not surprised. Or, if they were, they did not articulate it. Instead, they watched and waited and hoped that they too would have the opportunity to engage in business with the Maleovellis who, it seemed, God had chosen to bless in abundance.
Thanking God was not beyond the Maleovellis either as they attended services in the Doge’s basilica every week, muttering prayers, using the holy water, listening with rapt attention to the Cardinale’s increasingly fervent sermons, railing against the evils of heresy, of the Estrattore and pagan practices. If the congregation were distracted by the presence of Signorina Dorata rather than the words the Cardinale delivered with passion from the pulpit, well, no-one really minded. Attendance increased until there was standing room only. Collection plates brimmed with soldi and donations to the Church soared. Even the Cardinale overcame his initial disapproval of courtesans as he appreciated what their presence among his flock, especially that of Signorina Dorata, did to his purse. The time he kissed Signorina Dorata’s hand was commented on for days after in porteghi over Nobiles’ Rise and beyond.
As the days blurred into weeks, and the weeks became months, the weather turned humid and then cloying as summer settled like a heavy cape over the city. The haze of heat now tempered the light that, for a brief time, had possessed a clarity and richness that winter, with its cold fogs, denied. It was as if everything faded a little during summer, wilted in the hot winds that blew from the south and increased the noxious smell that rose from the canals and infected the campi. These added the fear of disease into the torpid summer mix.
Since Tarlo’s first formal public engagement, her daily demands had been reduced. Hafeza would still attend her when she awoke, which became later and later as her evenings filled, but her afternoons were her own until after siesta, when she would resume her candlemaking. Often Tarlo found herself counting the hours till her next rendezvous, to the time when she could sit across from some arrogant nobile, prattle for his entertainment, pretend to laugh at his jokes, peer intently into his eyes, whisper silly promises in his ears and then escape to the bedroom. She longed for the moment when she would be alone, claiming an urge to use the chamber pot or tidy herself, and was able substitute her candles for the ones burning around the bed. Only then did she feel in control, safe again. For once her candles were lit and the nobile or merchant was in their thrall, she knew exactly how the remainder of the night would unfold.
She had never again spoken about what happened to her with Giacomo Moronisini the night he’d given her to his friends, using her body to pay the debts he’d accumulated. Debts, she later found out, his father knew nothing about. Instead, she’d appeared to push the entire incident out of her head and embrace her new role. She played it without complaint and, to the Maleovellis’ delight, fault either.
It was only the blackness inside her that prevented the images of that time from playing over and over. It held them at bay, kept them in the dark. Sometimes, when she’d fall into an exhausted sleep, they would revisit and she’d wake screaming, trembling from head to toe and bathed in a fine sheen of sweat. Hafeza had run to her the first few times, but Tarlo had shrieked at her to leave, thrown things to force her out of the room. After a while, Hafeza ignored her calls, her sobbing. So did the Maleovellis. It was as if they had never occurred. That suited Tarlo. But whereas she could have extracted the worst of her memories, lessened them, she chose not to do that. She allowed them to remain and fester in the deepest of crepuscular spaces. She would not forget and neither would she forgive. Instead, she would use the new emotions and feelings they gave her to do whatever it was she had to in order to bring the Estrattore back.
Tarlo knew that Baroque yearned to ask her exactly what had happened. The shock on his face when he saw her three days after, the narrowing of his eyes and pursing of his lips said more than words. When he’d spluttered, ‘What happened?’ all she had said was ‘Giacomo Moronisini’. Revenge was her privilege, not Baroque’s, though she appreciated what the intenseness in his face every time she caught him staring at her signified. It was more than Giaconda or Signor Maleovelli had given her.
Like her real identity, the entire incident was erased as effectively as spilled vino from a table. Only the next time they entertained the Moronisinis, not long after Jacopo returned, she was not invited to join them. They’d spared her that at least.
The Maleovellis kept her busy – extracting and distilling, transforming candles into objects of manipulation. As time passed, so too did the lives of those around them. A very wealthy silk merchant was suddenly in league with them, sharing his import business and his profits. A salt merchant also reached an arrangement with Signor Maleovelli that, while benefiting both parties while they lived, on the sudden death of the merchant a month after the agreement was signed, meant that the entire business passed to the Maleovellis. His widow and three daughters were forced into a convent. According to the nuns, they were provided with a generous annuity.
Much to many nobiles’ surprise, the Moronisinis had given Giaconda a gift of half a dozen galleys; some said it was in payment for a service rendered, but no-one quite knew what the service was, although they speculated. A very well-known tailor who, it was rumoured, made Signorina Dorata’s special golden gowns, also signed over the handling of his thriving business to the Maleovellis.
Even the Ottoman ambassador, Ramadi Suliman, a former Janissary of the current Sultan, had been known to dine with the Maleovellis, who were prepared to cater to his unusual dietary requirements. Foreign officials, merchants, members of the Church, and nobiles all beat a path to the Maleovellis’ door. And everyone attributed this rise in popularity and fortune to the mysterious Signorina Dorata.
When it came to beauty, no sacrifice, financial, political or familial was too great.
IT WAS WELL PAST NOON WHEN TALLOW awoke. She lay in her bed, reluctant to rise. The fetid odour of the canal crept in the window, tinging the already close air in the room. Outside she could hear the sounds of gondoliers on the main canal. Servants shouted to each other from windows, exchanging gossip, not caring if others heard their stories. Tallow propped her head on her elbow and listened. She’d been the subject of many a conversation, swapped while beating rugs or shaking out wet washing. She’d heard envy in their tone, and pride – she was one of them: Signorina Dorata lived in their sestiere and they earned a certain cachet with their distant families because of that. Boasting of her nearness would have been a popular pastime over Sunday dinners. She’d also overheard what it was believed she earned. Millione, they said she charged – a million ducats! She’d almost laughed that day.
Within the house she could hear the clack of heels against the floors and the opening and closing of doors along the corridor. Now that they had more servants, the previous stillness of the house had disappeared. Dark corners evaporated with the light of burning candles and the smell of mildew was washed away in lemon-scented waters and musky oils. Below she could hear the low hum of men’s voices. No doubt Jacopo and Signor Maleovelli would be welcoming merchants, showing them the beautiful fabrics, spices, dried dates, salt, figs and jewelled ornaments that were not only the basis of their new business ventures but which Jacopo had brought back from overseas. They were only part of his prize. He’d also returned with valuable documents – exclusive trading rights within the region. The Doge had been most impressed, and Tallow knew it was only a matter of time before Signor Maleovelli was restored to the Council of Ten.
Noises from her stomach finally shook her from bed. She went behind the screen to use the chamber pot and then washed before throwing on one of her older gowns.
The dining room was empty, but a platter of exquisite fruits was laid on the credenza, as well as some cold meat and sliced bread. Sipping a watered vino, Tallow helped herself. She was
just finishing with a cafe when Jacopo entered. She had been staring into one of the candles, lost in thought, and hadn’t heard him approach. He cleared his throat. Startled, she jumped.
‘Jacopo!’ The cup clattered as she fitted the delicate china back on its saucer.
‘Did I startle you, cousin?’ said Jacopo with a smile that indicated it had been deliberate. ‘Mi dispiace.’ He inclined his head before studying her with his lazy eyes.
Repressing a shudder, Tallow quickly finished the cafe and left her chair.
‘Please, don’t leave on my account,’ said Jacopo, grabbing her wrist. He pulled her towards him. His stinking breath blew against her face.
Tallow froze and raised her arm. His fingers bit into her flesh. She stared at them. ‘What makes you think I would do anything on your account, Jacopo?’ she said quietly.
He sniggered. ‘The jewel has developed sharp edges while I’ve been gone. I like it.’
‘Trust me, Jacopo,’ said Tallow slowly, ‘you won’t.’
Jacopo leant so close his lips almost brushed her ear. He inhaled deeply. ‘Trust me, Dorata, I would.’
Tallow felt something wet along the side of her face. It took a moment to register it was Jacopo’s tongue. She tried to pull away, but he was stronger than she thought. He used the momentum to drag her into his arms. He managed to capture both her hands in his. Tallow struggled.
‘Let. Me. Go.’
He began to breathe heavily. Tallow almost gagged. ‘I hear you like it rough, Dorata. I do too.’ He lifted his other hand, slipping it inside the bodice of her gown, groping clumsily. He sneered at her, daring her to stop him. She stood rigid in his arms, neither struggling nor protesting. His cheeks flooded with colour, his hands reached further down.
His eyes met Tallow’s, and for the first time in months she stared into his.
