Courtesan's Lover (18 page)

Her voice sounded kind.

Maria began to mutter, more to herself than to her companion, “I can't ask anyone I know—I simply can't! There's no one. But you'll tell me—I'm sure you will. You'll understand. You're…you're a…” The final word faded away, and Maria stared down at her lap, winding her wedding band around and around her finger.

“Ask what?”

Maria looked up at the woman. She imagined her questions, hanging loud in the quiet air between them, and her courage drained away. She shook her head and said nothing.

The church bell tolled the hour, and the woman in the crimson dress glanced up at the clock. “Oh,” she said. “I really should be getting back to my children.”

Maria's heart pinched with envy. “You have children?”

“Two. Twin girls.” The woman picked up her
chopines
and made to stand, but she stumbled on her first step, gasped, and then swore again under her breath.

Maria stood too. “Please—let me help you home. Do you live far from here?”

The woman explained.

“That's no distance. I can go with you. Take my arm, Signora.”

The woman smiled at her.

***

A matter of yards from the Via Santa Lucia, in sight of the sea, the two women saw a small group of people outside a tavern. A young girl, no more than sixteen, Maria thought, dressed in an extravagant and tattered orange dress, was leaning insolently against a wall, clearly enjoying the admiration of a group of young men in varying stages of inebriation.

The woman in crimson stopped. “Look,” she said. “I've had an idea. Can you wait a moment?” She raised her voice and said, “Excuse me…” and the group turned as one to see who had spoken. The girl, still leaning on the wall, raked her from head to foot with an appraising, disdainful sneer; Maria she ignored completely. The men's attention shifted quickly from the girl to Maria's companion—their stares were unabashed and openly lascivious. Maria's skin crawled, but her companion seemed to take no notice. “Might you be able to find a use for these?” she said, holding up the shiny
chopines
.

The girl's pretense of superiority vanished. Like a greedy child, she gasped, and her eyes stretched with longing.

“Don't you want 'em?” she said, staring at the shoes. “Whass wrong wiv 'em?”

“Nothing. They don't fit me anymore.”

The girl stepped forward and snatched at the shoes. With her tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth, she kicked off her own wooden pattens and slipped a grubby foot into one of the chopines. Then, wobbling a little, she balanced on the impossible shoe and put on the second, smiling widely. Her admirers clapped. She made no attempt to thank her benefactor, and after a few seconds, the woman in crimson turned to Maria. “She seems happy enough, Signora. Shall we go?”

Maria smiled and nodded, and the two women limped on, leaving the young men eagerly assuring the girl that they needed to see a very great deal more of her legs to appreciate fully the beauty of the strange new footwear.

Luca della Rovere eased his arms into the sleeves of the doublet Signora Zigolo held out for him, pulled the two halves of the front together, and roughly laced it closed. He flexed his shoulders, raised and lowered his arms, twisted from side to side. He smiled at the seamstress.

“It's perfect, Signora. Thank you so much. I imagine it must have been something of a challenge to mend?”

“Ooh, nothing I could not manage, Signore,” Bianca Zigolo said happily. She raised a plump forefinger in cheerful admonishment. “And I had
not
forgotten it, Signore, though it was a pleasure to see your son when you sent him to see me the other day to remind me about it. It is to be quite an evening, from what he tells me.”

Her face radiated curiosity. Gianni could not have told her much—he knew next to nothing about the night to come himself. Luca said, “Yes, it will be an impressive gathering, Signora. Though it doesn't happen often, when it finally organizes such an occasion, the university does like to create a spectacle.” He raised his hands in mock apology and smiled as he said, “I am afraid that as a mere lowly academic I am not thought important enough to be party to any of the details, though I believe there is to be performance of a play and a quite certainly overindulgent and disgustingly extravagant meal, which we will all no doubt thoroughly relish.”

The seamstress blew an appreciative breath out through pursed lips, shaking her head as though struggling to accept the idea of such opulence.

Luca said, “And I shall enjoy the evening all the more for being so finely dressed, Signora. Thank you again. Now…how much do I owe you for your labors?”

She told him, and (privately astounded that anyone could survive on so pitiful an income) Luca paid her, inclined his head in a brief bow, and left the shop with the newly mended doublet over his arm.

He walked slowly back to the house, thinking about his sons.

The continuing tension between the two boys was unsettling. In itself, it was not unexpected: Carlo and Gianni had been uneasy playmates since early childhood. Over the years there had been frequent, usually petty quarrels (most often occasioned by Carlo) and seldom had they seemed truly to enjoy each other's company. Their troubled relationship saddened Luca, more acutely since Lisabeta's death. His sweet-natured wife had always been able to reconcile the differences of her two sons—either with smiles or scoldings—and whatever their issues with each other, both boys had unreservedly adored their mother. He saw again in his mind their uncomprehending devastation on the day of her unexpected death and thought with tearing guilt of his own inability to comfort them from within the shattered shell of his own grief.

He too had adored Lisabeta.

With the loss of the woman he had so fiercely loved howling around him and deafening him, he knew now that as that first year of bereavement had trailed past, he had entirely failed to hear the plaintive pleas of his sons for his attention.

When, months later, the tumult died down and he could step outside his head again, he turned his thoughts back to his boys. But he found unexpected changes. Seven-year-old Gianni's cheerful confidence had shriveled without his mother; nervous and mistrustful, he now watched the world through wide eyes and spoke little, and Luca found that he missed Gianni's happy chatter almost as much as he missed his wife. And there was worse: clever, vivid little Carlo seemed to have withdrawn—even in those short months—inside a hard carapace Luca could not now penetrate. Carlo hardly spoke to his father. Within his shell the boy had become devious, manipulative, cunning, and Luca found himself almost afraid of his older son, whom—to his great distress—he found he no longer entirely trusted.

He remembered thinking at the time that something like this must be the experience of sailors who come back from months—years—at sea, to find that in their absence their home life has altered beyond recognition and that they no longer know people they thought irrevocably familiar.

He walked on for some moments, tangled inside a buzzing jumble of uncomfortable thoughts.

“Oh, Luca, how lovely to see you!”

Luca started at the voice, and then smiled to see the diminutive figure of his friend, Serafina Parisetto, crossing the narrow street toward him. Hardly taller than a child and impossibly narrow shouldered: it always amazed Luca that such a tiny woman could have successfully borne two children. She stopped close to him, placed a hand on his arm, and smiled up into his face. He had to stop himself from crouching to bring himself down to her height.

“I have been wanting to see you for weeks, Luca—ever since you sent us that invitation. I know Piero has told you we should simply
love
to come, but I've been very anxious that you have been thinking me most
dreadfully
remiss not to have spoken to you myself.” She hesitated, and then her mouth opened and she sucked in a little gasp, as though she had just thought of something very shocking. “He did speak to you, didn't he?”

Luca laughed. “Yes, Serafina, I saw him some two or three weeks ago.”

Serafina puffed a breath out again. “
Santo
cielo
—I thought for one frightening moment that he might not have done and then you should have thought us the rudest friends anyone could possibly have.”

“Which of course you are…”

Serafina caught her lip between her teeth to stop herself smiling, and smacked Luca's forearm. “You are a
horrible
man, Luca della Rovere,” she said. “I don't know why Piero and I ever agreed to come to this play with someone so totally unlikable!”

Luca laughed again.

Serafina said, “But, seeing that we are being forced to spend an evening with such a
canaglia
impenitente,
perhaps you can tell me a little more about what we may expect…”

Her phrase “unrepentant scoundrel” made Luca think unwillingly of Carlo. He pushed the picture of his elder son back out of sight.

“Do you have the time to come back to the house, Serafina?” he said.

“I most certainly do. Piero's mother is at home.”

“I'll tell you as we walk then.”

***

Despite the fierceness of the sunshine outside, the light in Luca's small
sala
was cool and dim. The shutters were, as usual, firmly closed to keep out the heat of the afternoon; they would not be opened again until the morning. Little of the bustling noise of the street below penetrated either, and the
sala
had a peaceful, composed air about it—rather as though the house were drowsing in the warmth with a shady hat over its eyes. Several large tapestries, depicting busily peopled scenes from mythological stories, covered two of the three un-windowed walls, and a long, scrubbed table ran the length of the room. The day being so warm, the fireplace was empty—clean and cleared of the detritus of the previous blaze, though a faint smell of burned wood still hung in the air.

“And shall you be coming to this marvelous evening of entertainment, Gianni?” Serafina asked. She replaced her glass on the table and folded small hands in her lap.

“Possibly, Signora.” Gianni flicked his hair out of his eyes. Pushing back his chair, he crooked one foot up onto the other knee, resting one arm on his thigh, hand hanging loosely.

Luca watched as one of the cats appeared and stood in the half-open doorway for a moment. It crossed the room to the table, where it snaked around the legs of Gianni's chair and pushed its head up into his palm. Gianni fingered the creature's ears for a moment. The cat began to purr.

“And why only ‘possibly,'
caro
?” asked Serafina.

“I have to make a trip to Bologna for my studies, and my tutor has not yet told me when I am to travel.”

“How tiresome of him. Well, I hope very much that your dates are settled soon and that we shall be able to have the pleasure of your company, Gianni,” Serafina said with a smile.

“I hope so too, Signora.” Gianni turned to Luca. “Papa, can you excuse me—I have one or two things I need to finish before tomorrow.”

“Of course—off you go—but would you be able to walk Signora Parisetto home when she's ready?”

Gianni nodded. “I'll be upstairs when you need me, Papa,” he said. He smiled, bowed briefly to Serafina and left the room.

As he left, the cat walked silently around the table and jumped up into Luca's lap. He scratched the back of its neck; the cat's claws stretched and curled in pleasure, needling into Luca's leg and making him wince.

“Oh, Luca, Gianni is such a lovely boy,” said Serafina. “If Paolo and Benedetto grow up to be even a quarter as delightful as he is, I shall be entirely overjoyed.”

“They will, Serafina—they are enchanting children, as you well know.”

“Yes, well, they are only three and one, so we have many years for things to change.”

Luca laughed. “Why do you always seem so very determined to see the absolute worst in your lovely boys—”

“The worst? Oh, heavens—if you want to know the worst—just listen to what my darling Benedetto did last night…”

The pair of them discussed the tribulations of parenthood with animation and amusement for a few moments until Serafina sighed and pushed back her chair. Luca stood too.

“I must go, Luca—my mother-in-law will be anxiously waiting for me to get back, I am quite sure. Patience has never been her most obvious virtue.” Serafina raised an eyebrow and Luca laughed again. Serafina said, “Thank you for your hospitality,
caro
. I do hope the time between now and the banquet, or play, or whatever it is, passes quickly. I simply cannot
wait
to see Filippo again, and to meet his cousin. Poor thing: I cannot imagine
what
I should do if I were ever to lose Piero—” She stopped abruptly, one hand across her mouth. “Oh,
cielo,
Luca…how
appallingly
tactless of me.”

Serafina threw her arms around Luca in consternation, but he kissed the top of her head, placed his hands on her shoulders and held her away from him.

“Stop it, Serafina—don't think of it for a moment. For goodness sake, it is—what?—nearly eleven years now. I am…quite mended now, I think.”

“Well, nevertheless, it was horrible of me to be so thoughtless. I am sorry.”

“You don't need to be. Don't think of it. Wait—I shall just call Gianni for you.”

***

Luca leaned against the door jamb, swinging his spectacles in one hand. He watched the two figures move away up the street: his long-limbed son and a woman whose head barely reached Gianni's shoulder. Luca could see that she was taking two steps to every one of Gianni's slow strides. Gianni carried Serafina's big basket.

He smiled at the sight, turned back into the house, and closed the front door. Does one ever fully accustom oneself to the sight of one's replication in one's children? Seeing Gianni now, it was as if he saw himself at seventeen. The over-long legs, the tangled curls, the slight stoop—Luca had not forgotten wanting to hide his height at Gianni's age. Gianni's eyes were Luca's, his straight nose, his wide mouth—at times the resemblance was unnerving. The day Gianni needed spectacles, the picture would be complete.

And Carlo? Luca sighed. Carlo most closely resembled Lisabeta's Venetian father, he thought. Slight, good-looking; much fairer-complexioned than he and Gianni. Carlo did not look Neapolitan at all.

Did physical similarity or difference influence filial closeness?

For he and Gianni understood each other, liked each other. They laughed and wept at the same things, could thrash out a discussion for hours, keeping easy pace with each other—both were fascinated by the intricacies of the law and, stupidly, both even shared a marked aversion to broad beans.

But Luca had very little notion of what happened inside the head of his older son. He had almost no conception of how Carlo earned his money, or of the identity of his friends. Shadowy individuals occasionally visited the house, but never stayed to talk, and Carlo carefully avoided the particular if he was ever asked about what he was doing. Rarely, if ever, did Carlo seem truly happy, except perhaps at odd moments (and usually at someone else's expense). He remained a worrying mystery to his father, and over the years Luca had spent many, many painful hours in fruitless arguments with himself, trying to decide whether he should blame this unsettling separateness of Carlo's upon his, Luca's, miserable withdrawal from his children at the time of his bereavement.

He consistently pushed from his mind his almost certain conviction that his older son was a sodomite. The terrifying threat of the agonies of the
strappado
—or the stake—should this be the case, and should Carlo ever be accused—and convicted—made Luca feel physically sick. He knew he was wilfully forcing himself to ignore the possibility of Carlo's unpalatable predilections, simply because he could not face their reality.

“Papa?”

Luca started at the sound of Carlo's voice, and felt himself reddening, as though he had been caught rifling through his son's possessions.

“Carlo.” He made himself smile.

Carlo slid onto a chair where he sat with one knee twitching. “I wanted to tell you, Papa—I have to be away for a week or so: I will be gone from tomorrow for about ten days.”

Luca waited to see if Carlo would expand upon this sparse information, but though his son smiled at him, he offered no illuminating detail. Luca, however, wanted to know. He said, “Where will you be going?”

“Rome.”

Luca's desire to know more about the trip seemed to swell inside his chest, and he felt his hands ball in tension as he fought not to question Carlo further. He did not wish to be seen to interfere.

But nevertheless on one matter he could not help himself. “Carlo?”