Courtesan's Lover (32 page)

He sat down on an upturned barrel some yards down from the tavern entrance, in sight of the curve of the dockside, and, lifting one hand, began to fiddle with his pigtail, winding it round and round his forefinger, wondering how long he would have to wait for a sight of his friend. He had resigned himself to being there for some time, so it was with a frisson of shock that he saw Carlo almost immediately, coming toward him from the far end of the dock. He held his breath.

Carlo was not alone.

Marco stood up, puzzled. Carlo was scowling, and he was hand in hand with two little girls. They were moving fast—Carlo striding, the little girls almost running. Some few yards away, their eyes met; Carlo's scowl became a not very pleasant smirk and the stride slowed to a swagger.

“Still hanging around waiting for me, Marco? After everything I said?”

Marco could feel his cheeks flaming. “I wasn't waiting for you.” Despite his best intentions, his voice sounded petulant and he wished he had kept his mouth shut.

Carlo gave a faint, contemptuous snort.

Marco wanted very badly to turn away and ignore him, but his curiosity was too much for him. “Who are they?” he said, nodding toward the children.

He saw Carlo cast them a strange, hard, greedy look. “Hopefully,” he said, “the key to a small fortune.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can't stop to talk now, I'm in a hurry,” Carlo said, “but…”

His next few words raised gooseflesh on Marco's arms.

***

The front door of Francesca's house was unlocked.

Michele di Cicciano pushed it and stepped up into the hallway. He called and listened. No reply. The place was empty. Wandering down toward the kitchen, his footsteps echoed on the wooden floor, and, when he tried clearing his throat, the noise sounded overloud in the stillness.

Michele climbed the stairs. The
sala
had been stripped out, he saw: the tapestries had gone, the furniture and ornaments were no longer there. The windows were bare.

She had moved out.

The bedchamber door was ajar. Pushing it open, Michele's gaze took in the bare-mattressed bed, and the great floor-to-ceiling looking-glass in its ornate gilt frame. He stared at his reflection for a moment or two before turning to the bed. Up near its head were two big boxes, packed with straw and a number of Francesca's belongings.

“Ah. So you've not quite left the place yet,” Michele muttered, pushing aside the straw at the top of one of the crates. On top of a number of other objects lay a painted wooden box. This Michele picked up. He turned the small protruding key and opened the lid.

“Well, well, well—you deceitful little bitch! So this is where you hid it!” he said softly, picking out a slim, needle-pointed knife and testing the edge of the blade carefully against his thumb.

Reaching back into the box, he found three vellum-bound notebooks. He thunked the blade of the dagger into the wood of the bed head, and then picked up the uppermost book.

“
Book
of
Encounters
…Hmm. That sounds as if it might make for a bit of entertaining reading.” Michele grinned and sat down on the bed; he hutched himself up to lean back against the wall, and, flipping the laces undone, he opened the book. He licked his lips, rubbed his groin absentmindedly, and began to read.

***

Modesto stood at one entrance to the Piazza Mercato and stared about him, his heart beating frantically in his ears and up in his throat, his breath catching in his throat. He felt sick. The city had never seemed so big, so crowded, or so labyrinthine. A clock struck three. The Signora would be home at any time. He had to go back to the house. He could not leave it to Ilaria to break the news.

“Oh, God…” I whisper. My face is numb and my mouth no longer seems able to form words. I manage to mumble, “How long ago?”

Modesto swallows awkwardly. His gaze is fixed upon mine. His breathing sounds heavier than usual, as though he has been running. “I got here about an hour ago,” he says, “and…and Ilaria told me that she hadn't seen them for at least another hour before that—”

A white-hot anger slices down through my belly at the thought of Ilaria's unforgivable negligence. I remember the mulish expression on her face as Luca and I left for Mergellina…and the kisses my children blew toward me as we left. My hands are trembling as I look across at her, but she is staring resolutely at the ground, her face a dull, purplish red, her fingers twisting together. “Has anyone been up to San Tommaso to see if they're there?” I say, in a voice that does not sound like my own.

Modesto says, “I went straight away. They weren't there, so I came back here.”

“But they might have got there after you left.”
Please
let
that
be
what
has
happened
.

Luca takes my hand. I look up at him. What happened in Mergellina seems a thousand miles away. He squeezes my fingers, and says, “San Tommaso? Do you mean the Via San Tommaso d'Aquino?”

I nod. Luca clearly wants to know more, but I don't know what to tell him. Hesitating, I glance across at Modesto, who says straight away, “She means my house, Signore. The little girls like coming to visit.”

Luca nods. “But is there anywhere else they might be—any favorite places? They're most likely to be somewhere familiar.”

“The waterfront. They like the boats,” I say, trying to force back images of sodden little bodies floating face-down in dark water between berthed ships.

“We need to cover as much of the city as we can as quickly as possible. Someone should stay here, in case they come home. I'll run down to the docks,” Luca says.

I nod. Luca's voice sounds as though it is coming from the other side of a shut door. I say, in the same unfamiliar, flat whisper I managed just now, “I'll go up to San Tommaso.”

“Are you happy to go there on your own?” Luca says. “Would you rather I—”

“No.” I interrupt him. “You go to the docks. You said—as much of the city as quickly as possible.”

I don't want him anywhere near that house.

“I'll go there now, then I'll run home,” he says. “If Gianni and Carlo are there, they can help search.”

“Is there any point in telling the
sbirri
?” I say, knowing the answer already.

Modesto runs his hand through hair already standing up on end. “That bunch of useless degenerates? No, they're worse than nothing—bloody vandals. We'll have to manage ourselves. I'll go up to Girolamini—to the market. They like it there. I've been twice already, but it's so busy at the moment, I could easily have missed them.” He turns to Luca. “Signore—”

I hear him begin to explain where on the waterfront we like to take the twins. I see Luca nod, feel him put his arms briefly around me as Modesto stops talking. My head feels as though it has been wrapped in gauze; I can neither see nor hear the people around me clearly. Everything is moving too slowly and sounds no longer seem to be coming from expected directions.

Luca leaves with Modesto; I hear their footsteps running together, up the street toward the docks and the market. I turn to Ilaria before I go myself, jabbing toward her with my finger, and hear my own voice saying, “Don't you leave this house, Ilaria—do you hear me? You have to be here in case they come back.”

She starts to say something in reply, but I have already left and do not listen. I begin to run, skirts clutched in both fists, feeling my chest swelling against the tight lacing of my bodice. The streets are busy, and people react indignantly as I push past them.

“
Cazzo
! Mind where you're bloody going, woman—”

“What's the hurry,
mignotta
?”

Checking frantically to right and left as I run—what if they are there, and I miss them?—I run through familiar streets as though I am a complete stranger in the city. I call and call. The girls' names crack in my throat. The words thud out in painful pieces around my running footsteps. People turn round and stare, but nobody offers to help. I can't remember how to blink. My eyes are stinging.

***

The front door of the house in the Via San Tommaso is open.

“Beata! Bella! Are you here?” A second's desperate hope. “If you are in this house, you two, you come down here now, do you hear me?”

Silence.

My chest is heaving from the running, my throat is raw and my rasping breath is loud in my ears. But that's all I can hear. They're not here.

And then a door clicks open upstairs.

“Girls?” It comes out as a shriek. I run up the steps, two at a time, skirts bunched in my arms, to see the door to my bedchamber slowly opening.

It is not the twins.

Michele. He leans lazily against the edge of the door frame. “Good. I hoped I'd see you,” he says. “I've been here some time—reading your diaries. Very entertaining.”

I
don't understand. How…? Why is he here?
“Have you seen my children?”

“Why? Should I have?”

“They're missing—I have to find them.”

“Well, they're not here.” Michele's voice sounds scornful. Then he says, raising an eyebrow, one side of his mouth lifting in a smile, “Maybe Carlo has them—he said he might be able to—”

I interrupt him. “Carlo? Who's Carlo?”

“A friend. I don't think you know him—but I believe you've met his little brother. Gianni, I think his name is.”

Gianni?
Then, yes, I have met Carlo
. “This one here is Papa's, Gian. Hands off, I'd suggest.”

“I don't understand,” I say. “Why…why would this Carlo have my children?”

The expression on Michele's face is frighteningly calm. He pushes out his lips in a
moue
of consideration. “Well. Let's see now. You've upset quite a few people recently,
cara
—me included
.
This friend—Carlo…well, he lost quite a lot of money because of you, the other week—I think he's hoping to find a way of making it back.”

“What…what do you mean?” I am struggling to breathe.

“Ooh, well now…very pretty little creatures, Carlo told me your girls are. And he said that a mutual friend of ours—a rather successful little privateer—told him the other day that little girls such as—”

“No!” I grab Michele's doublet sleeves and shake him. “Where is he? Where has he taken them? You get them back!”

He flaps his elbows out sideways, knocking my hands away. Snatching at my wrists, he pulls my arms up in front of me. His twisted smile now quite gone, he holds me in close to his chest and says, “I've really no idea where they are—if he has them, that is. But perhaps…a little later on…I might be able to help you search.”

He dips his head forward, seeking a kiss.

“You bastard! Oh God, you bastard!” I turn my face away from him and try to wrench my arms out of his grip, but he is too strong for me. “Let go of me! Michele, let go! I have to go—I have to find my children—”

“No. Not yet.” He speaks through closed teeth.

“
Vaffanculo!
” I try kicking him, but my skirts are too thick and too heavy, and when Michele starts walking backward, back into my bedchamber, he pulls me with him with ease. Modesto's voice sounds somewhere in the back of my mind—
You've always just been too bloody proud to ask for help when you need it, he'll go too far one day—
but Michele has reached my bed and swung me around to lie across it; he holds me down with one knee and Modesto's voice vanishes. I push hard at the heavy knee, and say, trying to sound irritated rather than frightened, “Get off, Michele, stop it! Let me go! I told you I've stopped working. I'm not doing this anymore.”

Michele holds my chin tightly between finger and thumb and tips my head backward. Bending down to put his face close to mine, he says, “No,
cara
, that's not quite true.
You
didn't tell me that, actually. Your eunuch did.
You
did not have the courtesy to tell me anything, if you remember.”

It is hard to speak with my head pushed backward like this, but I manage to spit out, “Fuck off! I have to find the girls.”

“Not till I get what I want,
troia
. And this time, I'm having it
gratis
.”

“Get
off
!” I shove as hard as I can at his leg, and it slips off me, but before I can sit up, he reaches out and grabs at something that is sticking out of the bed head.

I freeze.

My head is a hollow sphere.

In his fist is the knife I took from him the other week. The silver one with the little round “ears.” The one I've been keeping in my box. Modesto said he would dispose of it for me, but I stopped him. Michele touches up under my chin with the very tip of the blade. It stings. The scar on my back twinges in sympathy.

“You'll not tell me what I can and cannot afford this time,
cara
,” he says.

Air from the open casement blows cold on my legs. Then, as he tugs awkwardly at his breeches, one-handed, his right arm jerks and the blade snicks in a bit farther. A little noise of panic smothers itself somewhere inside my head. I cannot take my gaze from Michele's. I cannot speak. I swallow, and feel the lump in my throat move the knifepoint sideways. He is too strong for me—and I can do nothing to stop him. The needle-point of the blade catches under my chin; where the point is digging in, it no longer stings—it is just achingly sore.

Detach my thoughts.

I have to block him out. Block Michele out. I can't rid him from my body but I can force him out of my head. I've done it before. Think. Think of what? Luca. Think of Luca. Luca rowing. Luca's hands on the oars and the sun on the water. Luca's hands on my face. He says he wants to marry me. He has no idea who I am but he wants to marry me anyway. Marry me. Marry me, marry me. The rhythm of Michele's assault becomes quicker, more insistent, and then, unthinking, his hand slips and a hot flash runs up from my throat, past my ear and up into my hair. I hear a sharp cry, which I think might have come from me. I press a hand to the side of my face. Michele seems not to notice. His eyes are unfocused and his mouth has twisted, almost as though he is in pain. But at last he pulls away from me, standing quickly, a strangely triumphant look of distaste distorting his face, as though he has just successfully accomplished a task he found entirely disgusting throughout.

“I'm going now,” he says. “Now I think about it, I don't think I have time to start searching for any children now, but if I see my friend Carlo, I'll tell him you want him.”

He strides to the door of the chamber. I have turned my head away from him, but I hear him pause in the doorway, and he adds, “By the way—as I was saying just now—I had a chance to read some choice extracts from your…” he pauses, and then says with a sneer, “…
Book
of
Encounters
while I was waiting for you this evening
.
You really are a grubby little bitch, aren't you?”

I hear him spit onto the floor, then he leaves the room. His feet are loud on the stairs, and then the heavy latch on the front door clatters; there is a blurt of sound from the street outside, and then the door bangs shut again.

A silence.

I have to find the girls.

God knows how long I have been here. I can't stay. Now he's gone, I have to find them. It's getting dark. A grubby bitch, he said. A bitch. Is that why they've taken my children?

I try to stand, but my knees are shaking, and as I slide off the edge of the bed, they crumple under my weight, and I am sitting on the floor. The side of my face hurts. I reach for the place with the tips of my fingers; it is warmly wet, and my own touch makes me feel sick.

“Get up…” I say aloud.

But I don't seem to be able to get up.

There is a soft noise in my ears, a quiet hissing, like running water.

I lean against the side of the bed and close my eyes.

I suddenly feel very tired.