Courtesan's Lover (46 page)

The sun is already low, and the fire in the
sala
looks cheerful and welcoming. There is a knock at the door. Beata and Bella scrabble out of the room and down the stairs, bickering about who will open the door to the visitors. I lean out of the room to watch as they scuffle with each other on the threshold, but then Luca appears; he gently scoops them out of the way and opens the door.

He is facing away from me, but I can hear the smile in his voice. “Filippo, Maria—I'm so glad you could come. Come on in! Come upstairs.”

I watch the familiar bulky, silver-haired man being ushered into the house. His wife follows him, but as she turns around and smiles at Luca, my mouth drops open.
Cazzo!
It's her! That sweet-natured creature who picked me off the cobbles outside San Giacomo and opened her heart to me so touchingly that day…
that
was Filippo's
wife.
Oh, dear God—what on earth am I going to say to her? And what will she say to me? Oh heavens, this is a nightmare! I wish I could speak to Luca before we all confront each other, but it's too late—they are on their way up the stairs.

Luca is shepherding them both up from the hallway and the twins are hopping from foot to foot on the steps below the visitors. I slip back into the
sala
, and cross to the fireplace, swallowing down a sickening feeling of dread.

“
Cara
, here are Filippo and Maria,” Luca says as they all come into the room. He shows them in, and then runs back downstairs for wine and glasses.

“You are both very welcome,” I say a little hoarsely, a stiff smile fixed onto my face as though pinned there.

Filippo is smiling broadly and blustering a reply, but, just as mine did a moment ago, Maria's mouth has opened in shock. She stares at me, her eyes wide and her face pale, clearly dumbstruck.

“Francesca!” Filippo says, his voice sounding unnaturally hearty. “You're looking well.”

“As are you, Filippo.”

He colors, but smiles. Reaching out a hand to Maria, he pulls her in close to him and puts a heavy arm around her shoulders. “Francesca, this is my wife, Maria. Maria, this is Francesca. The new Signora della Rovere.”

Maria and I each manage a limp little smile.

I say, “Come and sit down here, by the fire. It feels decidedly chilly to me.”

We all move across to where several chairs have been placed near the fireplace. Filippo helps Maria to sit, then seats himself next to her, taking her hand as he does so; my smile fades again as an awkward silence seems to fill the room. Even the twins sense it—they have curled up next to each other in one of the window recesses, and are now looking from me to the two visitors and back, cheek to cheek, wide-eyed and curious.

Luca appears then with a large bottle of red wine and a basket of bread. He flicks a glance toward Filippo and Maria, then to me, and I can see a flash of understanding in his eyes—though he knows less than he thinks. Putting the bread and wine down on the table, he sits down in the chair next to mine, draws in a long breath, and says, “Filippo, Maria—you must be wondering about the happenings of the past few weeks.”

Filippo starts blustering, trying to absolve himself of being thought intrusive. But Luca holds up a hand, and Filippo stutters to silence. Luca says, “Please, don't apologize. I'm sure that, were I in your position, I should be deeply curious.” His voice is warm and calm and contains no accusation, and Filippo's tense shoulders relax a little. Luca continues. “Of course
you
know what happened in the court, Filippo. We are so very grateful for your help, as you know.”

“Well…I…er…”

Luca opens his mouth to speak, and then he hesitates. Beckoning to the twins, he smiles as they scramble down and cross to stand in front of him. He takes one of each girl's hands. “Can you run upstairs for a few moments, girls?” he says quietly. “I want to talk to Signor and Signora di Laviano about something private. Mamma will call you when you can come back downstairs again.”

They both turn to me. I smile and nod, and, looking at each other with an expression that quite clearly shows their lack of appreciation at being thus removed from a potentially interesting situation, they nevertheless leave the room without comment. Their footsteps sound on the stairs, and then on the ceiling above our heads.

“I don't think that the details of some of the circumstances of these past days are really suitable for their ears,” Luca says to Filippo and Maria, who both nod. Luca says, “Now. You know that Carlo has been…sent away from Napoli.”

Filippo's color deepens again as he nods. He is looking quite hot and flustered now. Maria looks down at her lap and starts picking at the stuff of her skirt.

Luca pauses and then adds, “But, Maria, I doubt Filippo will have told you the truth about Carlo's case; he is far too discreet. But I'm sure you would prefer to know.” He draws in a breath and then says, “Carlo was accused of murder. A murder he had quite certainly not committed.”

The silence that follows this is so complete that when Filippo shifts minutely in his chair, I can hear the soft sound of the cloth of his breeches rubbing against the wood.

Luca continues. “I discovered that Carlo was facing the possibility of summary execution.” He stops. “And of course, I feared the worst. You know, more than most, Filippo, of the intransigency of the Spanish in situations like this. But then…then…we had a stroke of luck.” He smiles at me. “Francesca was able to speak with one of the Spanish, someone she…someone she…er…knows quite well—
Maestre
Vasquez.”

Filippo's color deepens still further. He cannot meet my eye.

“And she was able,” Luca says, his voice
almost
steady, “to persuade him to plead for Carlo on our behalf. We were very fortunate. Filippo—you were there—he must have pleaded effectively—for Carlo's sentence although not overturned, was commuted…to…to one of exile.” There is another pause. Luca's voice cracks now, and I reach across and take his hand as he says, “My son has left the city. He has left the country, in fact, and is currently traveling, with…well, with an acquaintance who captains a small ship. I think they are heading for Africa. I don't…know when he'll be in Napoli again.” Another long silence. Then Luca says, “Gianni's away too.” His voice sounds a little stronger as he adds, “But he, on the other hand, should not be gone too long.” He manages a smile. “He's in Roma, taking a break from his studies. He's looking for temporary work, and I expect him to visit in a few months.”

This of course is all true, but Luca's many omissions feel like screaming lies to me.

We all try hard to talk after that, but, as in those dreams where you try to run with leaden legs that grow heavier and less mobile at every step, each word we utter now seems to leave our mouths sluggishly and to be taking too much time to reach the ears of the listeners.

After a moment or two, Luca says to me, “Shall we bring the girls down now?” and I know he is hoping that their lively and innocent ignorance will freshen the atmosphere in the room. I call up the stairs to them, and within seconds, they have clattered down and burst back into the
sala
, quite obviously hoping to pick up clues as to what they have missed while banished to their room. Luca holds out the basket of bread for them to hand to the guests.

It seems, though, that bread in baskets in this room is never very secure…in her enthusiastic struggle to be the one to hold the basket, Beata stumbles and knocks most of the pieces out onto the floor; Bella snorts in derision at her sister's incompetence, they both begin to giggle as they pick up what has spilled, and the stifling oppression that Luca's truths have spun between the four adults in the room lifts a little. Well, that's not entirely true: the men begin to talk more freely, but between Maria and me, that day at San Giacomo stands like a great buttressed rampart. I have no idea how to broach the subject, though, in front of Luca and Filippo, without embarrassing Maria.

And then an idea occurs to me.

Reaching out a hand toward Maria, I say, “Perhaps you would care to come with me to the kitchen—I want to cut up some more bread, seeing as my girls have laid waste to so much of what I had prepared before. I'd be grateful for some help.”

There is another snuffle of laughter from the window ledge where the girls are once more ensconced.

Maria glances at the twins, then smiles and nods. “I should like that,” she says shyly.

I pick up the basket, and we leave the
sala
together. The men and the girls watch us go, and I hear the hum of conversation resume as we cross to the kitchen.

Tipping the spoiled bread out into a basket of rubbish, and taking a couple of fresh loaves out of an earthenware crock, I look across at Maria. This has to be done. If we are ever to establish any sort of communication between us, one of us has to say something, and I don't believe she is going to have the courage—I'm not sure how to do it myself, come to that—but I have to try. After a long and difficult pause, I manage to say, “I had no idea, when we met before, that…that you were Filippo's wife.”

Maria's face reddens. She starts twisting the fingers of one hand with those of the other, staring down at them, and avoiding my eye.

I say, “I'm still so grateful to you, for your kindness that day, outside the church.”

She frowns. “I couldn't just have walked on and left you in pain on the ground.”

“A fair number of other people managed to do just that, as I'm sure you saw.”

“Perhaps they did, but it seemed unchristian to me.”

“You helped me…even though you had realized…my profession.”

She blushes scarlet and does not reply.

I hold her gaze and say, “Maria, I need to tell you…I'm no longer what I used to be. That part of my life is over. Forever. And Luca knows my history. He and I have no secrets from each other.”

Maria stares at me for a full minute. She seems to want to speak, but, just as on that first occasion, she opens her mouth several times and closes it before she manages to utter a word. “You and Filippo seem to know each other quite well. How is that?” she says. “He hasn't told me.”

Oh, God.

My face feels stiff and the hair on the back of my neck lifts.

I think my silence answers her question very clearly—she bites her lip and stares at me, saying nothing. Then I give her the actual truth. “I was introduced to him several years ago by a mutual friend, a man called Stefano di Morello. Perhaps you know him.” Put so simply, it sounds innocent. Of course, I don't add that Stefano had been one of my first patrons, and that he had told me that, in his opinion, if Filippo didn't get a fuck within a couple of weeks, he, Stefano, thought that his friend might well explode. But then I don't need to say it. Maria knows all too well. She continues to stare at me, her expression unreadable.

Then she looks down at her fingers and says, “It's very strange. I had thought before that if I were ever to meet the woman Filippo was seeing, I would hate her. When I sat there in my chamber, week after week, knowing full well what he was doing while he was away from the house, I would often plan that meeting. I would imagine the things I wanted to say to her, things that would make very clear just how much I loathed her.” She meets my eye again. “But now, face to face with that woman—with you—I find that I can't do it. It would be wrong. After everything you've done for me…” Struggling with herself for a moment, she then adds, “And after everything I know you did for Filippo.”

“He's always loved you. Very much,” I say. “Never me. It was never like that.”

She regards me steadily for a long moment and then says, “Yes, I know that now. And I know too, that without you, I might have lost him.” She pauses. “I want you to know that I did all the things you told me to do that day. And they had the effects that you suggested they might.” She hesitates again and then says, quietly, “I'm very grateful.”

I put my hands over my face. Her candor and sweet-natured forgiveness after everything I have done are almost unbearable, but within seconds, I feel her fingers on my wrists. She pulls my hands away from my eyes, and puts her arms around me. I hold her, too, and for several seconds we stand pressed close to each other, in an unexpected gesture of friendship, mutely acknowledging each other's pain and fallibility.

Then the door to the kitchen opens, and Bella says, “What on earth are you doing, Mamma? Luca says where's the bread?”

As December ended its first week, the weather was damp and cold. That morning the sky had been heavily overcast and by mid-afternoon it was raining hard. Luca, his teaching over for the day, walked fast, his shoulders hunched against the chilly winter downpour. Dust-laden rivulets were running between the cobbles, merging together at the sides of the road to form grubby little streams, and even though he was taking care to avoid the worst of it, Luca's boots were waterlogged, and his feet were frozen.

He ran the last few yards to the house, fumbled the latch, then stepped gratefully indoors and closed the door behind him. Shaking his dripping hair back from his face, he stripped off his doublet, which now smelled like a wet dog, sat down on the bottom stair, and eased off his boots. Then he squelched across the stone flags and up the stairs in his wet hose, carrying both doublet and boots into the kitchen. Two cats slithered out of the room as he came in. The doublet he hung on a hook, then he turned to where a row of six upright sticks, some inches apart, were set into a heavy stand on the floor near the fireplace. Each stick was about two feet high, and each had a carved round wooden ball a couple of inches in diameter at the top. Turning the boots upside down, Luca placed them over two of the sticks, intending them to dry in the warmer air near the fire. One had a worn patch on the sole, he saw now, and he determined to remember to have it repaired. He picked the laces of his breeches undone, stepped out of them, and peeled off his hose. He laid all these items over the back of a chair in front of the fire and, clad now only in his shirt, and feeling thoroughly chilled, he stood for a moment with his back to the flames, enjoying the feeling of the heat against his cold buttocks. After a moment or two, he padded across to the stairs and climbed another flight to the bedchamber to find some dry clothes.

His new wife's belongings were evident throughout the house now, Luca thought, smiling to himself as he pulled fresh hose and breeches from a chest by the door and then sat down on his bed to put them on. She was not very tidy. Her combs and hairpins were in a red glass bowl on the window ledge, though some had been left scattered along the ledge and others had fallen onto the floor below. Luca now picked these up and replaced them in the bowl. On a table nearby, a miniature chest of painted drawers held earrings and ribbons and other items of jewelry, many of which had not been put fully away and now protruded and dangled from the part-opened drawers.

Luca crouched down, opened the lid of a large wooden chest that stood against the wall farthest from the door and ran his fingers over the stuff of the dresses and shifts that lay folded within, aware as he did so of a wisp of Francesca's faint scent. He closed his eyes for a second and breathed her in, feeling a giddying rush of love for this extraordinary creature who had so utterly changed his life. Then, pushing his feet into a dry pair of shoes, he picked a soft sleeveless woollen doublet from a hook on the wall near the bed, shrugged it on, and ran down the stairs, intending to prepare something for their evening meal.

He was still not used to Luigi's absence.

It was little more than three weeks since the old man had succumbed—in a matter of days—to what Luca had at first thought no more than a slight chill. Luca's genuine grief at Luigi's demise—he had, after all, been part of the Rovere family's domestic life for nearly thirty years—had been somewhat tainted by a wash of guilty relief that the whole issue of what to do with the ailing old servant had been thus forcibly sorted. He and Francesca had managed the house between them in the weeks since, with the occasional help of Francesca's enormous and supremely gifted cook, Lorenzo. On the days when Lorenzo came in and prepared their meals, they dined like kings, Luca thought, but he had to admit that he preferred the days when he and Francesca worked side by side in the kitchen, peeling vegetables, chopping meat, and coaxing the frequently reluctant fire to a suitable level of ferocity to cook whatever it was they were planning. And the little girls were fast becoming proficient housekeepers in their own right.

He glanced out of the window, trying to assess the time. The light was fading—it was probably some time past five, he thought, wondering how long it would be before Francesca returned home. The house seemed very empty without her.

***

Maria pulled her hood up over her head, and held her cloak out to one side as she ran, offering cover to one of the twins—she was unsure which one. The child ducked in underneath the makeshift shelter and pressed in against her, little fingers gripping the stuff of Maria's dress, her rain-soaked head at roughly the height of Maria's armpit. “Better?” Maria gasped. They bumped together as they ran awkwardly.

“It's all gone down the back of my neck!” the girl said breathlessly, her voice quivering somewhere between laughter and tears.

“Quick! In here!” Francesca, hand in hand with her other daughter and with Serafina Parisetto's younger son on one hip, ran past, ducking under a low lintel into a short, vaulted passage. The baby was wailing. “We can wait in here—come on, Serafina, quick!”

Serafina and the older boy scurried in behind Francesca, and Serafina reached across to take the baby from her. They all seven huddled close, peering out at the teeming water that was now cascading off the roofs and parapets and splattering down onto the cobbles in front of them. Both Benedetto, the baby, and Paolo, the older boy, were now crying, and Serafina clucked and shushed, jiggling the smaller boy in her arms.

“Beata, where's the basket?” Francesca asked.

“Here, Mamma.”

“Quickly, look in it now, and get out a sugar pig for each of you.”

Beata crouched down, reached into the raffia basket she had been carrying, and, pushing her hands down into a jumble of fruit, vegetables, bread, and other oddments, pulled out a pair of bright pink lumps of sugar each about the size of her fist and shaped vaguely like a rudimentary pig. A short length of twine protruded from one end of each, like tails. She handed one each to the two little boys. The crying stopped as if plugged tight with a spigot. Two pairs of eyes widened and little hands stretched out to take their treats. Beata went back to the basket, found two more pigs, handed one to her sister, and began to lick the last one herself.

“That's better,” Francesca said, smiling at the four children who were now all busy with their treasures. Benedetto had his pig in both hands, he was twiddling the twine tail around one shrimp-like forefinger, and his mouth was stretched so wide in an attempt to fit the head of the pig into it in its entirety that his face looked quite distorted. Serafina kissed the top of his head.

***

There was a knock at the door. Luca ran downstairs to answer, expecting Francesca, but instead, a young man stood on the door sill, a dirty sack draped around his shoulders to keep off the rain. He reached under the sack and brought out a sealed letter. “For you, Signore,” he said with a curt jerk of the head.

As soon as Luca had relieved him of the missive, the boy turned on his heel and stumbled off up the street, his outline blurred and indistinct in the wet.

Frowning, Luca climbed the stairs to his study, breaking the seal of the letter and shaking it open as he went. Once in the study, he rummaged under several sheets of paper on his table until he found his spectacles; he stood still in the middle of the room and read for a moment. A wide smile stretched across his face. He returned to the kitchen, his eyes still on his letter; when he had finished rereading it for the third time, he tucked it behind a candlestick on a shelf near the fireplace and put his spectacles in his breeches pocket.

***

The Angelus had just struck and it was already almost dark. The rain was still heavy and Luca was just beginning to feel anxious. They had been gone too long. He riddled the fire in the kitchen with the poker, startling a cat, who had been sleeping on a nearby stool, wiped his hands on his breeches, and put a lid on the large pot of soup he had made. Briefly registering that it smelled more appetizing than his usual attempts, he crossed to the window and peered out into the street below, but, with the room brightly candlelit, he could see nothing but his own reflection, distorted in the flawed glass. He pushed his hands into his breeches pockets and began to pace the kitchen.

Several minutes passed. The fire crackled, the lid of the soup pot sighed and lifted occasionally, and little spat-out gobbets hissed as they hit the flames. Luca's shoes scuffed softly on the wooden floor as he crossed back and forth; he told himself he was being foolish, but nonetheless kept pacing.

And then the door downstairs rattled and opened, the sound of voices, breathless with wet and cold and tiredness, filled the hallway, and Luca huffed out his relief, pushing his fingers through his hair. Quickly taking the lid back off the pot, he picked up a long spoon and a handful of parsley, and bent over to inspect his soup, embarrassed now about his anxiety and intending to look happily occupied when they all came upstairs.

“Luca?” Francesca called up the stairs. “We're back. A trio of drowned rats. Maria and Serafina and the boys have all gone home.”

“I'm in the kitchen. Are you
very
wet?”

“We're
soaking
!” This from one of the girls—more a shriek than an answer. “Even our shifts are wet!”

“My feet are frozen!”

“Come up and get changed, all of you.”

Noisy feet on the stairs. The slap of sodden skirts on walls and floor. Gasping laughter from the children as they scrambled on up past the kitchen, calling out their greetings on their way up to the next floor. Francesca appeared at the door to the kitchen, holding her arms out sideways and displaying to Luca the extent of her saturation. “Look! Look at me!” she said, laughing.

Luca looked.

Her hair hung around her face, lank and heavy with rain. Her dress and coat were clinging to her legs, and a dark tide-mark like a meandering coastline stood out around her skirt at about the level of her knees. Coming close, Luca saw that raindrops were glittering in her eyelashes.

“You need to get those wet things off,” he said, tilting her chin with a finger, and kissing her mouth, which was damp and cold against his fire-hot face.

“Want to help me?”

Luca's insides shifted. He grinned, but jerked his head up toward the ceiling. “I should love to, but we have company.”

“Mmm.” Francesca lifted an eyebrow. “What a nuisance. I'll have to do it by myself then.”

Luca picked up the sodden laces of her bodice and pulled the knot undone. “I'll help you with your dry clothes later on, though. When the ‘company' has gone to sleep.”

“I'll look forward to that.” Francesca kissed him again, then turned to leave the room. Luca watched her. As she reached the door and pulled it wide, a candle sputtered in the draft and caught his attention; behind the candlestick he saw the letter he had received earlier that evening. “Oh—before you go…” he said.

Her hand on the door jamb, she leaned back into the room. “What?”

“A letter arrived an hour or so ago.”

“Who from?”

“Gianni.” Luca paused. He smiled. “He says he thinks he'll be home in time for Christmas.”

Francesca stepped back into the kitchen. “Oh, Luca—I'm so pleased!”

“He's met a girl, he says.”

“What?”

“The daughter of some well-to-do notary in Roma, apparently.”

“That's wonderful!”

“Well, when I say ‘met,' I'm not entirely sure they've spoken to each other yet. From what he writes, I don't think it's been much more than a case of making doe-eyes at each other so far, with the young lady up in her father's
sala
peering out of the window, and Gianni sighing in the street below like a lovesick dog. But we'll no doubt hear all about it at Christmas.”

Francesca smiled.

Looking forward to imparting his next piece of news, Luca said, “But that's not all.”

“Why? What is it?”

“Look.” He held out the letter. “See for yourself. See who else he met in Roma.”

He watched her read, a frown puckering the skin between her brows. A few drips from her hair fell onto the paper. Then, feeling his own smile stretch, Luca saw Francesca's mouth fall open as she reached the bottom of the page. She looked up at him. “Oh, Luca. Do you think he'll come too—with Gianni?” she said.

“He might. If he's ready. And if he does…he'll be very welcome.”

Francesca crossed the room back to where he stood; Luca put his arms around her and she hugged him fiercely; her dress was cold and wet and smelled of evening air, and her hair lay chill against his cheek. The dampness began to seep through to his skin. Taking her by the shoulders, he kissed her and said, “Go on, go and get changed. You're making me wet. And then we can all sit down and have something to eat.”

She held tight for another few seconds, and then stood back. “I'll be down in a moment,” she said.