Courtesan's Lover (7 page)

“What a strange thing for you to be thinking,” Emilia said.

There was a long pause. All Maria could hear were their footfalls on the cobbled path. Her sister's face was, as usual, quite impassive and unreadable, and in an instant, Maria was rocked by a sudden need to ask Emilia about her intimacies with her late husband. She felt sick. Had Emilia endured the same suffocating, broken-necked paralysis in the bedchamber as she always did? Or had the sisters' hellfire-scorched injunctions somehow passed her by? When Antonio had died—had there been, somewhere beneath the grief Maria knew her sister had genuinely suffered, a wash of relief? She knew, in a jumble of muddled guilt and self-loathing, that if Emilia had indeed been, for the years of her marriage, as miserably confused as she herself still was, she, Maria, would in some strange way feel less alone. Her instinctively compassionate nature hoped—quite genuinely—that her sister's marriage had been a happy one, but another less forgiving voice at the back of her mind could not help yearning for a companion in her isolation.

Emilia interrupted her thoughts, saying, “Funny, you remembering that boy. You've made me think of any number of things from our time at San Sebastiano, Maria. Do you remember Sister Cecilia and that lizard?”

In spite of her discomposure, the memory of the incompetent and corpulent Sister Cecilia's inept attempts to capture the errant reptile in the convent chapel made Maria smile. The two sisters spent a few moments sharing memories of their years with the nuns, and then they both fell silent once more as they turned toward home.

Maria thought about the evening ahead and the brief sense of amusement she had felt at her childhood memories trickled away and vanished like water into sand. She had guessed what it was that Filippo did on those occasions when he returned late to the house. She sensed something dishonest in his eye, and there was often a certain familiar slipperiness about his lower lip, when he gave his regular excuses.

She did not blame Filippo, though, and in some confused way found herself even feeling grateful to whoever the woman might be, for thus tending to her husband, and so releasing her from the obligations she found so difficult to fulfill. But she also knew a painful, screaming jealousy when she allowed pictures to form in her mind of her husband's hands on another body. Even though the touch of those hands on her own skin froze her into immobility. She could hardly bear to think of how Filippo would be spending his evening and yet, with a trickle of shame, Maria admitted to herself a certain relief that tonight, at least, he would not need to ask her the question she dreaded.

She felt hot tears sting the corners of her eyes and wiped them surreptitiously with the tips of her fingers, turning her head so Emilia would not see.

She hoped this unknown woman did not love her husband. And hoped rather more desperately that Filippo did not love the woman.

I
surprised
myself
last
night. I couldn't sleep, and I found myself thinking about Filippo and the impossibility of his situation, and as I lay there thinking, I realized, much to my astonishment, that I actually envy his wife. How strange that must sound, for a courtesan to admit that she envies a frigid woman. But Filippo's wife has something I have never had—a man who loves her. I'm sure from what Filippo says that that is the case, despite everything. I imagine what would happen if I withheld my favors from my patrons, the way Filippo's wife does from him. Dear God, if I were ever even to suggest it, I should very soon be left with nothing and no one. And I doubt it would take long.

Filippo's wife is truly a lucky woman. She is loved for who she is, and not for what she does or how she looks.

Some eight or nine small tables had been crammed into the front room of the dockside tavern; the place was crowded and airless and smelled strongly of salt and sweat and cheap tallow, of wet cloth drying against unwashed skin. A clotted rumble of conversation hung over the tables, while a man, seated to one side of an open fireplace, picked out a plaintive tune on a wooden pipe. Several women—painted faces, bleached and braided hair—had clustered together nearby to listen. Candles burned at each table, and the faces of the many drinkers were indistinct and deeply shadowed.

Carlo della Rovere was sitting at the far end of the room. He was being watched. A thin, pigtailed young man in dirty, crumpled shirt and breeches was chewing on a fingernail and staring toward where Carlo was rubbing at the filthy glass of one of the windows with his thumb. He watched as Carlo peered out moodily for several seconds and then scowled back down at his now blackened thumb. Carlo rubbed the dirty thumb on his breeches and drained the small glass of clear spirit that had been standing on the table in front of him, grimacing open-mouthed and blinking as his eyes watered. Turning toward where the young man stood in the shadows, he raised a hand and called, “Marco!”

The young man's face burned. He licked his lips, flicked the cloth he was carrying so it fell across one shoulder, and set off across the crowded tavern. After yesterday, he said to himself as he stood up on his toes to edge sideways through a narrow gap between tables, he thought he might allow himself to hope for a few moments alone with this Signor della Rovere tonight, after the tavern closed. Marco had a good idea what he might do with those moments if he was offered them—Signor della Rovere's preferences had been quite obvious, from the fragment of conversation that had passed between them last night. He was good looking, Marco thought—fairer than most men in Napoli—slight, no taller than he himself. And not that many years older. By the look of the Signore's clearly recently purchased doublet—a decent bit of doeskin by the look of it—and that pretty little silver dagger in his belt, he was not short of money. And Marco rather liked the expression on the Signore's face—he looked bored and arrogant and sulky. A wealthy young man in need of entertainment, Marco thought. The sort of entertainment he was more than happy to provide.

Reaching Carlo's table and leaning in toward him, Marco laid a hand on Carlo's sleeve. “Would you care for another
grappa
, Signore?” he said.

Carlo looked at Marco's fingers for a moment. Then, raising his gaze to the pigtailed boy's face, he lifted an eyebrow and said, “Yes. Thank you. Bring the bottle, would you? And another couple of glasses. I'm expecting company.”

“I won't be a moment, Signore,” Marco said, his eyes on Carlo's mouth.

Carlo turned back to peer through the little cleaned patch of glass.

Marco wormed through the jostle of drinkers to where several shelves stood ranked with bottles of
grappa
, brandy, rum, wine, and ale. He sidled past the elderly tavern owner, bent down, and reached for a full bottle of
grappa
from the lowest shelf. Looking back over to Carlo's table, he paused. Two men had entered the tavern and were pushing through the other drinkers, toward where Carlo sat. With the bottle and the two requested glasses in his hands, Marco followed them, watching critically. One was richly dressed: tall, lean, long-legged, his hair close-cropped and curly, and his nose noticeably once-broken. The other was older: slight, more than a head shorter, dressed in salt-spattered seaman's breeches and boots. He was dark and wiry, with tangled hair and a beard teased into several long, twine-thin plaits.

The taller of the two newcomers called out, “Carlo!” and Signor della Rovere turned around.

“Cicciano,” he said, nodding at the newcomer. “Glad you could make it. Do you want a drink?”

“God, yes—and I'm sure
here would too. He's just brought me ashore from his ship in some accursed pisspot of a rowing boat. Not an experience I relished. Yes, I would certainly welcome a
grappa
.”

Carlo smiled. “Signore,” he said to the little man with the Medusa plaits. “I've been looking forward to meeting you for some weeks. Michele here has told me much about you and your beautiful little ship—a
sciabecco,
is it not?—and the plans you both have for the next few months.”

“And I have heard much about you
, Sinjur
,” said
.
His Maltese accent was lilting and lazy.

“I understand from Michele,” Carlo said, “that he has had your ship refitted.”

“Indeed,
Sinjur
. My little
is looking as beautiful as she has ever done, I think.”

“And in return he's expecting a tenth of your pickings?”

pecked a nod.

Michele di Cicciano ran the fingers of both hands up and into his hair; he sat with elbows winged on each side of his head for a second, then laced his fingers together and cracked the knuckles. Smirking, he said, “The ‘pickings' look set to be particularly fruitful since
received his Letter of Marque.”

Carlo turned to
. “A Letter of Marque? From De Valette?”

Both
and Cicciano nodded.
began curling the stringy braids beneath his chin around his index finger. Marco, standing in the shadows a few feet away, saw, with a shudder of revulsion, that the little man had only the first two fingers on that hand—the fourth and fifth were merely stumps.

“It's not just any Letter of Marque, either, Rovere,” Cicciano said, grinning. “As Governor of Malta, De Valette has assured
that as well as all the privileges of becoming a ‘privateer,' he and his men can keep anything they…er…‘acquire' on a voyage. All of it. Every last
scudo
.”