In the Company of the Courtesan (11 page)

He is up as far as the third story now, and the pyramid is shaking a little with his clumsiness. One of the men at the bottom lets out a savage yell, and the dwarf grimaces and flaps, so the crowd thinks he is really in trouble, which allows them to laugh at him even more. But he knows what he's doing, and when he finally gets to the top and secures himself, out of his doublet he pulls a piece of colored silk on a small stick like a flag and gives a triumphant wave. Then he sticks it on his back and bends himself over until he is crouched like a dog, his hands and feet balanced on each of their shoulders, so the flag now flies like a standard above him.

It takes the crowd a moment to grasp the impact: to see how, in the light of the firebrands, his pose is a mirror image of the great stone winged lion at the top of the Pillar of Justice above him, its wing standing up like its own flag from the ridge of its back.

Despite myself, I, like everyone else, am applauding madly, because it is magnificent and because, of course, I wish that I could have done it myself.

“I would not even consider it, Bucino. There are a dozen better uses for your talents.”

The voice is strong and low, like that of a singer who has been taught to hold the note longer than the chorus, and I would have known it anywhere. I turn, and even though all I can think of is the trouble he will cause, I am pleased to see him.

“Look at this, my friends! The ugliest man in Rome has come to Venice to show up its beauty. Bucino!” he yells, and grabs me around the middle, raising me till my eyes are level with his. “God's wounds, man, you are a sight to behold. A dozen chin hairs don't make a beard. And what's this pauper's shit you are wearing? How are you, my little hero?” And he shakes me a little to emphasize his point.

Around him, a group of youngbloods and noblemen, encouraged by his insults, laugh louder at the sight of me. “Don't laugh,” he booms. “This man may look like a jester, but he suffers from the cruelest joke God can play. He was born with the body of a dwarf and the mind of a philosopher. Isn't that right, my squat friend?” He is grinning as he sets me down, though his face is a little flushed from the weight of me.

The truth is he is no painting himself, but then he was growing plump on patronage even before the attack maimed his hand and sliced a zigzag into his neck.

“Whereas you, Aretino, have the body of a king and the mind of a sewer.”

“A sewer? And why not? Man spends as much time excreting as eating, even if the poets would have us believe otherwise.”

And the young men behind him whoop their delight.

“I see you've found like-minded souls to befriend you in this strange city.”

“Oh, indeed. Look at them. The cream of the Venetian crop. All dedicated to my advancement. Aren't you, boys?”

They laugh again. But for the last interchange we have slipped into Roman dialect, and they have probably caught only half of what we were saying. He takes me by the shoulder and pulls me off to the side, leaving them a little way behind.

“So.” And he is still beaming. “You are safe.”

I bow my head. “As you see.”

“Which means she is too.”

“Who?”

“Ah, the woman you would never have left Rome without, that's who. God, I have been frantic these last months for news of you both, but I could find no one who knew anything. How did you get out?”

“I ran between their legs.”

“I would expect no less! You know the bastards broke into Marcantonio's workshop. Destroyed all his plates and machines, beat him to within an inch of his life, and then ransomed him. Twice. Ascanio abandoned him, did you know that? At the first gunshot. Stole the best books from his library and ran, the scum.”

“And what of Marcantonio now?”

“Friends raised the ransom and got him as far as Bologna. But he'll never engrave again. His spirit was broken along with his body. My God, what a circus of infamy. You didn't read what I wrote about it? My letter to the pope? It had even the sharpest of Roman critics crying in shame and horror.”

“In which case, I'm sure your words were more real than my experience,” I say evenly, and brace myself for his guffaw and the hearty slap on the back. Like my lady, he was never one to hide his talents from the world.

“Oh, thank God for the fact of your deformity, Bucino. Or I would have to count you as my rival. So—tell me. Seriously. She is safe, yes? Thank God. How was it?”

How was it? “It was a huge party of death,” I say. “Though you would have approved of parts of it. Along with ordinary Romans, the Curia and the nuns took much of the worst.”

“Ah, no. There you do me an injustice. I flayed them with words, but even I wouldn't wish the stories I have heard upon them.”

“What are you doing here, Pietro?”

“Me? Where else would I be?” He raises his voice now with a gesture to the men behind him. “Venice. The greatest city on earth.”

“I thought you said that about Rome.”

“I did. And so it was. Once.”

“And Mantua?”

“Ah, no. Mantua's full of numbskulls.”

“Does that mean the duke no longer finds your poems flattering?”

“The duke! He is the greatest numbskull of them all. He has no sense of humor.”

“And Venice does?”

“Ah—Venice has everything. The jewel of the Orient, the proud republic, mistress of the eastern seas. Her ships are the womb of the world's treasures, her palaces are stone and sugar icing, her women are pearl drops on a necklace of beauty, and—”

“—and her patrons don't know how to close their purses.”

“Not quite yet, my little gargoyle. Though they are all noble merchants in this city, with taste and appetite. And money. And they are eager to turn Venice into the new Rome. They never liked the pope, and now that he's melting down his medals for his own ransom, they can get their hands on all of his favorite artists. Jacopo is here. You know? Jacopo Sansovino. The architect.”

“Fancy that,” I say. “Maybe he'll get a few decent commissions at last.”

“Now, now. There is already work for him. Those lead camel humps on their gold monstrosity—sorry, the great basilica—are falling down, and there is no one here who has a clue how to hold them up. You don't understand, my little friend. We are great men here. And we will soon be wielding even greater influence. So—where do you say she is?”

I shake my head.

“Oh, come. She's not still angry with me? When one has looked death in the face, what is a little slander? It made her famous anyway.”

“She was famous enough without it,” I said. And the memory of his betrayal hardens me against his charm. I move away from him. “I have to go.”

He puts his hand on my arm to hold me back. “There is no quarrel between you and me. And never has been. Come. Why don't you take me to her? This city has wealth enough for all of us.”

I stand still and say nothing. He drops his hand. “You know I could have you followed. God's teeth, I could have you murdered in the street. Assassins here have a higher success rate than in Rome. No doubt something to do with all that dark water. Which I seem to remember is not to your taste at all. God, Bucino, you must truly worship her to have followed her to this dank world.”

“I thought you said it was the greatest city on earth.”

“And so it is.” He gestures back to the boys, raising his voice.

“The greatest city on earth.” Then, dropping it again, “I could help her, you know.”

“She doesn't need your help.”

“Oh, I think she does. If she didn't, I would know of her already. Why don't you ask her anyway?”

The group comes up and surrounds him again. He wraps his good hand around one of their shoulders, and they move off together into the crowd, though not before he has thrown a final look at me. Seeing them closer now, I realize they are not quite so well dressed that they own the streets. Though you would not tell that from the way they walk them.

One thing is for sure. Even with La Draga's gum alum and pigs'blood, we will not be pretending virginity now. Damn him.

 

The house is dark when I let myself in, but as I climb the stairs I hear music coming from the upstairs room.

I open the door quietly. She is too intent on her playing to notice me. She is sitting on the edge of the bed facing the window, one leg crossed high over the other under her skirts, the better to support the body of the lute, and the light from a cheap candle at her feet is throwing flickering shadows around her face. Her left hand is on the fret board while the fingers of her right are cupped and moving high like spiders' legs over the strings. The sound makes me shiver, not just for the beauty of it—her mother, who was scrupulous about developing her talents, would have had her learning when she was barely able to walk—but because it speaks of the possibilities of our life to come. I have not heard her perform since we were thrown out of Eden almost a year ago, and when her voice comes, while it is not quite the siren song that pulled Odysseus toward the rocks, it is still sweet enough that were there babies awake in their cradles nearby, it would soothe them into sleep. The notes rise and fall as the song weaves a story of fresh beauty and lost love. It never fails to amaze me how a woman whose job it is to suck the seed from a dozen wrinkled pricks has a voice pure enough to rival that of a virgin nun. Which only goes to prove that while God may hate sinners, he sometimes saves his greatest gifts for them. We will need all of them now. Her fingers stay high over the strings as the sound dies away.

I clap my hands slowly from my place by the door. And she smiles slightly as she turns, for she is always good at sensing an audience, and gives a gracious bow with the nod of her head. “Thank you.”

“I've only ever seen you play for men,” I say. “Is it different playing alone?”

“Different?” She plucks at a string, and the note vibrates in the air. “I don't know. I was always playing for an audience, even when it wasn't there.” She shrugs, and I wonder, as I do from time to time, how strange it must be to be bred expressly to pleasure others. As much a vocation surely as that of any nun in thrall to God. She is, however, mercifully unsentimental about such things. That too, I daresay, is her training.

“Though this instrument is rubbish, Bucino. The wood is warped, the strings are too tightly strung, and the pegs too stuck for me to alter.”

“Well, you still make it sing well enough for my ears.”

She laughs. “Which were always made of cloth when it comes to music.”

“As you will. But until you have a bed full of lovers, you will have to make do with the compliments I give.”

But she is not one for false modesty, my lady, and I know that she is still pleased.

“So. How was it? Did you go to the piazza?”

“I did.” I hear again the voices of the castrati in chorus with the howling of the dogs and see the dwarf 's flag and the lion's wing in silhouette together against the burnished night sky.

“And—it was very fine.”

“Good. She always dresses well for her pageants, Venice. It is one of her great talents. Maybe you will grow to like the city after all.”

“Fiammetta,” I say softly, and she turns, for I do not use her name often. “There is something I must tell you.”

And knowing, as she does, that it must be serious, she smiles. “Let me see. You found yourself in conversation with a noble merchant who has a house on the Grand Canal and has been looking all his life for a woman with green eyes and shorn fair hair.”

“Not quite. Aretino is here.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

It is a shame that they ended up as enemies, for they had much in common. They were both strangers to Rome, both from humble beginnings but with enough of an education to be unafraid of those more powerful yet more stupid than themselves. They each had a sharp wit and an even sharper hunger for the wealth it could bring them, and they seemed not to recognize the meaning of failure. If she was younger and more beautiful, then that was only fair, since women make their fortunes from their looks, not their pens. And if he had a crueler mouth, well, that was because, for all her experience of the flesh, he was as much a whore as she was, though he made his living by selling his wit rather than his body.

By the time they met, they were each established in their different ways. Aretino had wormed his way into the outer circle of Leo X, where his tart reporting on the scandals of the day brought him to the attention of one Cardinal Giuliano d'Medici, who became his patron as much to deflect the vitriol from himself as to target it toward other people. When Leo died and the papal crown was there for the taking, Aretino did such a good job of insulting all of Giuliano's rivals that when one of them became pope instead, it was safer for him to disappear for a while. He came back two years later for the next papal election, where his horse finally won the race. Enter Clement VII.

By then my lady was herself a force to be reckoned with. In those days Rome was the natural home of courtesans. Indeed, it had been their birthplace. A city full of sophisticated clerics, too secular to be saints, especially when it came to matters of the flesh, had soon enough created its own court, with women as refined out of bed as they were wayward in it. Such was the appetite for beauty that any girl with a wit and intelligence to match her looks and a mother willing to procure for her could make a small fortune while her looks lasted. Those twelve offers for my lady's virginity had resulted first in a house paid for by the French ambassador, a man who, as she tells it now, had a liking for young girls but a passion for boys, and so she mastered early the attractions of male clothing and sodomy. While they are worthy talents for a successful courtesan, they are limiting for a young woman with her potential, and my lady's mother was soon wheeling and dealing to find her other keepers. One of those was a cardinal in the new pope's circle, and because he had a fondness for conversation as well as copulation, my lady's house became a place for pleasures of the mind as well as the body. In this way she came to the attention of Pietro Aretino.

In another life they might indeed have become lovers (he was pretty then, and you had only to spend an hour in the company of either of them to understand how that mutual wit and energy might spark a flame). But my lady's mother was a dragon at the gates, and she was smart enough about the business to know that when rich men keep women in the style to which they themselves are accustomed, they don't want to find some sewer satirist pushing his nose into their pots of nectar. As to what exactly took place, I have no idea, for I was new to the household then and still confined to the abacus and the kitchen, but I do remember the morning when we woke to find my lady's name, in a series of Aretino's satires on the Pasquino statue, being used as a byword for the licentiousness of Rome. While such publicity was as much advertisement as it was insult for a good courtesan, his behavior was ungentlemanly to say the least, and for a time both parties went out of their way to demean each other whenever they got the chance.

Yet that is not the whole story either. For it has to be said that a few years later, when Aretino wrote a set of obscene sonnets to support the disgraced engraver Marcantonio Raimondi, he chose not to use my lady's name as one of the Roman whores he exposed there. And later, when the papal censor, the sour-faced Bishop Giberti, hired an assassin to knife him down on the streets, my lady, when she received news of his injuries, did not choose to celebrate as so many did but instead kept her thoughts to herself.

 

She has moved to the window, so I cannot see her face. Like most good courtesans, she is adept at living with two sets of feelings: the ones she has and the ones she pretends to have to humor her clients. In this way she is often interested when she is bored, sweet when she is peeved, funny when she is sad, and always ready to pull back the sheets to play when what she would most like to do is sleep alone in them.

“My lady?”

She turns on me, and to my surprise there is laughter in her eyes. “Oh, Bucino—don't sound so worried. Of course he would end up in Venice. We should have guessed. Where else could he go? He's offended most of the rest of Italy by now. And scum always collects on the top of the water. What? Why are you looking at me like that? You didn't believe those stories people told about us, did you? It was all lies. Roman gossip, nothing more. I couldn't care less about him.”

“Unfortunately, it is not as simple as that,” I say, a little piqued that she finds it necessary to dissemble to me of all people, though I suspect it is as much to herself. “While he may be scum, from what I saw he is indeed floating close to the top here. And he knows that we are in trouble.”

“Why? How does he know that? What did you say to him about me?” And now she is angry at the very thought. “Jesu, Bucino, you know better than to tell anybody our business, especially a poisonous windbag. While I have been rotting in this room, it was your job to find out the lay of the city. How did you miss a toad as big as Aretino?”

“Possibly because he doesn't wear a dress,” I say evenly.

“Don't let your anger steal your wits. I told him nothing. I didn't need to. Even if his boasts of influence are only half true, the fact that you are not known here is its own testimony to our misfortune.”

“Oh! To have survived the massacre of Rome only to be trashed by a gutter poet. We do not deserve this.”

“It's not as bad as you think. He spoke fondly of you. I think he was afraid you had died in the rubble of Rome. He says he can help us.”

She lets out a long sigh and shakes her head. In the end she always looks a thing straight in the eye. Believe me, not all women arrive so quickly at where they need to be. “I don't know. You have to be careful with Aretino. He is smart, and he flatters your wit so you think he is your friend. But cross him and he has a tongue like a viper. And his pen always goes where the money is. Our ‘disagreement' was a long time ago, but I would not choose to be beholden to him for anything.”

She pauses. “Still, you're right, Bucino. His presence makes our decision for us. Now that he knows we're here, we had better get on with it, or his gossip will run before us. The only reason Venice has not heard of me is because I am not yet announced. But I am ready. We both know that. And while this house may not be on the Grand Canal, with some nuns' hair and the right tapestries and furnishings, we can give that snoop across the water something to confess to at her next confession.”

Women are weak vessels, their humors too cold and their hearts too afflicted by irrational emotion to stand as tall as men. So says every philosopher from Saint Paul to the old man who measures the well. What I say is they have not met my lady. “You have the resilience of a great whore,” I say, grinning. “And you play the lute like an angel.”

“And you flatter like a bucket of slops. I should have left you dropping the balls next to that banker's table. If—”

“I know, I know. If he had had a monkey instead of a dwarf, you would have bought the monkey. Though I doubt it would have taken to the water any better than I have.”

It is so late now that it is early. The morning light is making stripes on the floor through the shutters, and it is so long since I have slept I can no longer tell if I am tired.

“Oh, God.” She yawns, stretching back against the bed. “You know what I miss most of all, Bucino? The food. I am so hungry for taste every day that if I were still intact, I would sell my virginity for a good dish of sardines fried in orange and sugar. Or veal with morello cherry sauce and squash baked with nutmeg and cinnamon and—”

“No. Not veal, wild boar. With honey and juniper. And a salad of endives, herbs, and caper flowers. And anchovies, fresh and salted…. And for dessert—”

“—ricotta tart with quinces and apple.”

“Peaches in grappa.”

“Marzipan cakes.”

“Ending with sugared fruits.”

“Oh…oh.” And we are laughing now. “Help me. Oh, I am drooling here.”

I pull a grimy paper from my pocket and uncover the remains of the sugared pears I bought in the piazza.

“Here. Try this,” I say. And I lift it up to her. “Here's to the best whore and the best cook under the same roof again.”