Courtesan's Lover (14 page)

I half-laugh, but say in protest, “And there was I thinking you were my friend, Bianca Zigolo.”

She smiles, reaches out and strokes my cheek, chuckling as she speaks “And so I am,
cara,
so I am. But…a young thing like him—
Santo
cielo!”
She drops her voice again, and mouths, “I would not let him anywhere near you! Just as well he left before you came out from the back.”

“What did he want?” I ask.

Speaking normally again, she says, “His father needs a doublet mending. Oh, now
he
is a lovely man, the Signore. He has had his troubles, mind you. Lost his wife some ten years back and has brought up those boys on his own. A good man, he is…and that young lad is just like him.” She smiles and then lifts her eyebrows. Glancing down at the girls, who are absorbed in their threading again, she whispers, “I'll tell you, Francesca, I would not mind having something like that to play with. I would not mind at all. Ooh, if I were twenty years younger…”

She pulls a face of exaggerated lasciviousness and I say nothing, wondering what Bianca would say if I described to her exactly what it had in fact been like…playing with Gianni.

We collect all our belongings and leave the shop. I take the children back to Ilaria and leave them happily stringing the bagful of beads Bianca has given them. I make my way alone back to the Via San Tommaso.

As I walk, my thoughts jangle uncomfortably inside my head. Why has this sight of Gianni so discomposed me? I truly do not believe I am—even a little—in love with him. He's just a boy. I would be pleased to lie with him again should he ever ask me to—of course I would—but then…perhaps women such as me simply don't deserve men like Gianni. Not
gratis
, in any case.

Will it ever be possible to turn the twins into the sort of women whom someone like Gianni might one day agree to marry? If, that is, I can manage to manufacture some sort of artificial respectability for them. Will a generous dowry and a few carefully constructed lies ever be convincing enough to conceal the unpalatable truth?

“You had an agreement, Carlo,” Michele repeated. “You shook hands on it. Walk away from it if it no longer pleases you.” He turned from Carlo and, lantern held high in one hand, began once more to pick his way down the narrow tunnel, away from the warmth and light of the tavern above them into cold darkness. Carlo followed, and for a while the two men were silent.

The ground began to slope downward, and keeping their footing in the darkness took careful concentration. Carlo had known since he was a small child of the ancient, labyrinthine web of tunnelling that crisscrossed its way beneath the city like the home of some horrible Neapolitan Minotaur, but until this moment, his natural dislike of confined spaces having been encouraged by his father's vehement injunctions against any proposed boyhood explorations, he had never done more than peer into the various tunnel entrances, wondering at the extent of the pitch-dark maze that had lain for centuries underneath the city streets.

The tufa stone was damp and slippery; it smelt of decay and dust, and the men's breath hung cold before their faces in the shifting light from Michele's guttering lantern. The tunnel bent sharply to the right, and then several steep steps dropped the level of the floor some dozen feet.

“But we agreed upon one twelfth…”

Michele merely shrugged. Without turning round, he said, “You agreed with
, if you remember, upon one twelfth
after
my portion had been removed from the pile, Carlo.”

“Yes, well. ‘The pile' would have been a damn sight smaller had I not been able to secure a buyer for the silver and if the silk hadn't sold for twice the amount
predicted.”

Flicking a brief glance behind him, Michele said, “I accept your connections are second to none and you drive a hard bargain. But a deal is a deal, Carlo—apart from which, if you want a piece of advice, don't even think of ever trying to cross Salvatore
.”

A couple more almost silent minutes passed; the only sounds were the feet of the two men scuffing against the rock floor, and the muttered oaths from Carlo as he slipped and stumbled and grabbed at the walls to maintain his balance.

“However big or small the pile might be next time,” Michele said, “we need a safer way to get it from the
up into the city; we need somewhere to store things if necessary, and
wants to know if this route is still viable.”

“This tunnel is supposed to go direct from the tavern to the sea?”

“Apparently so.”

“If it does—and I had no idea that any part of the
sottosuolo
actually linked to the water—then I agree, it solves any number of logistical problems, Cicciano.”

Michele nodded. “
says he can bring the
—or at least the cutter—right up into the crook of the bay behind Posilippo, and if we can take any goods right into the city straight from there, then life will certainly be a very great deal simpler and—
Porca
puttana
!
”

He broke off, swearing softly as the two men stepped from the cramped tunnel out into an enormous, echoing chamber the size of a church. Vast, slabbed side walls sloped inward and upward; several shallow “rooms” led off to either side, and as Michele held the lantern high, Carlo saw another three tunnel mouths leading out of the cavern at the far end, little more than black slits in the tufa. The two men's shadows stained the rocks behind them like great ink blots.

“It's perfect.” Carlo stared around him. “We could store anything here. Anything. And you are certain that no one else uses the entrance at the tavern?”

“Not as far as I know.
seems confident, anyway. The landlord has been an ally of his for years—was a privateer himself once,
said. Shall we go on—down to the sea?
says we need to take the central tunnel. Both the others are dead ends. Useful storage areas, perhaps.”

Carlo nodded.

“Wait a moment.” Michele stood the lantern on a ridge of rock, and spent a few minutes collecting small stones, and piling them into a neat, conical cairn at one side of the entrance to the tunnel they were about to leave.

“What in hell's name are you doing, Cicciano?”

“I want to be quite certain of finding my way out…” Michele said with a grin.

Carlo said nothing, but his eyes were suddenly blacker.