Courtesan's Lover (45 page)

As Carlo stared at the little Maltese privateer, the ship rode up and over a big sea; he felt his insides swirl unpleasantly and, before he could stop himself, he vomited over the floor of
cabin.

***

Toward evening, Gianni pulled on his doublet and took another long, considering look around the room. Some fifteen feet square, its walls were a faded dove grey; the paint was bubbling and flaking away from one corner near the ceiling. An elderly and sun-bleached tapestry covered most of the north-facing wall, depicting the confused culmination of a successful hunt. On one side of the room, a low bed was piled with blankets and pillows, while opposite it were a small table, two chairs, and a crumbling credenza, its surfaces liberally peppered with woodworm holes. A threadbare carpet lay rucked over the wooden floorboards. The whole place was old and shabby, there were no hangings at the windows, and a chill air of disuse hung around him, but Gianni's face split in a wide smile as he surveyed his new home. He had, entirely unaided, found somewhere to stay. In Roma.

Closing and locking his door, Gianni ran down the two flights of stairs to the street below—a narrow lane which led directly onto the long Piazza Navona. Though the sun had already sunk below the roofscape, the market stalls in the piazza were still busy, lit now by tall, flaming torches, and the place was thronging with people.

Pushing a hand into a pocket in his breeches, he clinked the coins he found there. He needed food and ale, and had a mind to try to buy a few things to brighten up his new nest—candles, perhaps a small lantern if he could find one, and maybe something to read. He would be starting his search for work in the morning, but until then, he had no commitments and he relished the unfamiliar sense of freedom. He wandered down the alleyways between stalls, conversing cheerfully with the stallholders and trying to look knowledgeable as he weighed items of food in one hand, shaking his head as if disapproving of the cost or the quality and haggling the prices down as though he had done such things all his life.

After an hour, he had successfully bought several slices of lamb, a small loaf, a portion of cheese, six apricots, and a large bottle of ale. He had also found half a dozen candles, a new tinderbox and a small, pierced-lead lantern. Somewhat laden down with his purchases, he determined to return to his room in order to set up his supper and, to this end, turned back toward the far end of the piazza, walking now behind the backs of the outlying stalls.

He was nearing the turning to his street when something caught his eye. Some way away, two men, deep in earnest conversation, were walking toward the Pasquino at the south-west end of the piazza. One of the men was elderly, slightly stooped, with thick greying hair and a beaky nose, while the other…Gianni stopped and stared. The other man was stocky, slightly barrel-chested, with protuberant black eyes. He was gesticulating energetically as they walked and whatever he was saying was clearly delighting his companion: the elderly man stopped dead and laughed aloud, shaking his head and bringing his hands together in fleeting applause. The stocky man grinned, then they both continued walking and talking. Gianni changed course, determining to catch them up, aiming to meet them before they left the great square. He tried to cut across the marketplace, holding his purchases up above his head. Worming his way through the melee of market-goers, he tried to keep the two men in sight, but there were too many people and he was too slow and, even as he reached the far side of the piazza, he knew he had lost them. Puffing out his disappointment, he backtracked through the market and returned to his room.

He hadn't looked as though he was passing through, Gianni thought. He hadn't had the air of a traveler; he had seemed relaxed and at home. No baggage. No hat. Doublet unlaced. Perhaps, Gianni thought, if he were to look again later—or tomorrow—he might see him again. He hoped so—he had liked Modesto very much. Smiling at the prospect, he laid two slices of the lamb on a plate, tore off a corner of his loaf, and placed it and two of the apricots next to the meat. Seating himself at his table, he began to eat.

“Luca's getting married again?”

“Apparently so,” Filippo said.

Maria smiled. “Oh, I'm so pleased,” she said. “How lovely. He's such a dear man—I've often hoped he would meet someone. What is she like? What's her name? Have you met her?”

A small, cold hand reached deep into Filippo's guts and gave a sharp tug. “Only briefly,” he said. “She's very beautiful—other than that, I've really no idea.”

“How did they meet?”

Now, this was dangerous territory. Filippo toyed briefly with the idea of admitting to the “cousinship” connection, aware that Maria might well discover it for herself at a later date, but then decided he did not have the courage to risk such a strategy. He would, he thought, give Maria no more than minimal information; everything that might be potentially catastrophic, he would withhold. Dipping into his bucket of perilous facts, he picked out what he considered might be the least hazardous. “She came to that play I went to, a couple of months ago, at San Domenico,” he said.

Maria frowned and said, “Oh, did she? Oh, what a shame—perhaps I should have made more of an effort and tried to go to the play, then I would have met her.”

But she wouldn't have been there, if you'd gone, Filippo thought. And I should still have been…busy…with her…on Wednesday evenings.

An uncomfortable thought.

He turned his head, looked sideways at his wife, and the thought retreated. Of course, had Maria come to that play at San Domenico that day, then yes, Francesca would still probably have been working, and he might well still have been one of her regular patrons, but equally, he and Maria would, quite certainly, not have been sitting like this now, in their conjugal bed together, warm and rumpled and just a little tired, and that would have been a great loss to them both.

Maria was sitting up against her pillows, her hair a mass of dark tendrils, her cheeks flushed. She was very pretty. Filippo thought back over the previous hour or so. He had to admit that Maria had none of Francesca's wild and wanton abandon—she never had, and he was fairly sure that she never would—and something within him ached at his loss of that experience of shameless liberation. But, looking at Maria now, he realized that there was something entirely—albeit quite differently—intoxicating about lying with a woman you knew for certain loved you very dearly. The tenderness in Maria's touch just now, hesitant and self-conscious though it still might be, Filippo had found really very comforting and pleasing.

He reached across to her and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear with one finger.

Maria closed her eyes and smiled again.

***

That moment in the street, the other day, when he had held her in his arms—for the first time in he could not remember how long—and he had felt the shamefully unfamiliar bony, boyish slimness of her, it had seemed to him in that moment that something indefinable about her had changed. He did not understand why this was, or what the change was, exactly, but whatever it was had made him feel oddly hopeful. Aware of a shifting sensation in his breeches, he had stood back from her, and said without thinking, “May I come to your chamber tonight, Maria?”

Only when the question had blurted out and was hanging in the air between them like an ink blot did Filippo begin to doubt his moment of hope, and wondered why he had spoken. How stupid! This would only be yet one more moment of thumping disappointment—one more of many, stretching away along an empty road into a barren future, unrelieved now by Francesca's ministrations. He had been angry with himself for asking; wished he hadn't done it. Allowing himself to be ruled by his cock yet again, he had spoiled this unexpectedly tender moment of intimacy that, until his idiotic request, he realized he had been enjoying. Holding his breath, teeth clenched, he had waited for Maria's usual stiff, awkward excuses, hoping he would be able to disguise his reactions when she refused him, as she so surely would. Having thus stirred up his own expectations, he would now, he supposed, have to relieve his frustrations alone, on the thin and lumpy mattress in the smallest bedchamber, as he had done so many times in the years before he had met Francesca.

But Maria had smiled, shyly, and said, “If you would like to.”

He had stared at her, mouth open.

She had hesitated for a moment, and then said something else that had astonished him even more than her acceptance of his suggestion: she had blushed, run her tongue over her lip, and said, very softly, her eyes fixed firmly on the ground between them, “I'll try to entertain you a little better than perhaps I have done for a long time.”

Entertain?

He felt quite winded with shock.

He had hardly dared hope that Maria's unexpected announcement might presage a genuine and lasting change in her willingness to accommodate his needs…but as they walked back to the house together that evening, she had nonetheless allowed him to take her hand in his. She had even squeezed his fingers. And on arrival back at their house, they had proceeded straight up to the bedchamber, creeping on tiptoe and whispering like naughty children.

And once upstairs, Maria had indeed been very much more “entertaining” than he had ever known her to be. She had closed the shutters and blown out all the candles in the chamber, her gaze fixed upon his; then, in the velvety darkness of their room, having carefully (and all but blindly) removed his wife's clothing, he had
felt
, rather than
seen
, a new determination in her, both to please and to be pleased by him.

It had been a revelation.

***

He could hardly bear the thought that this new, albeit still fragile and precarious, intimacy between the two of them might so soon be shattered by revelations about his past liaisons with Luca's newly betrothed. He felt his pulse beating in his throat as he heard Maria say, “Perhaps we can arrange for Luca and—what did you say her name was?”

“I didn't say. I believe her name is Francesca. Francesca Marrone.”

“Francesca—I do like that name. I used to have a great-aunt Francesca. She died years ago—you never met her. But perhaps we can arrange for them both to come to our house to eat with us, sometime soon, don't you agree? I should love to meet her.”

Filippo did not trust himself to speak.

The two identical profiles are facing each other on the pillow, eyes closed, peacefully unaware of the world. Beata is sucking her thumb. I stand and watch my daughters sleeping for a moment or two, and then I feel a hand on each upper arm.

Luca is smiling when I turn to look at him. He runs a thumb softly beside the line of almost-mended scarring around the side of my face. It hardly hurts now and, in candlelight at least, it scarcely shows. In fact, if I dress my hair carefully, I can hide it. The messy little wound under my chin has taken longer to heal, and is still painful, but fortunately that one is almost out of sight.

“Come to bed,” Luca says, taking my hand.

We go together to the floor below.

Luca's bedchamber—I still have trouble thinking of it as “ours'—is lit by a single candle. The windows are shuttered. The bed is hung with green curtains that seem to be moving gently in the bobbing flame, and the candlelight is dappling the polished floorboards with gleaming blotches. In the grate, the fire has died to embers, around which the last few lazy flames are licking almost noiselessly.

This is only the second day that I have stood in front of Luca as his wife.

It was a hasty marriage, perhaps, taking far less time than is usual in Napoli. We had to dispense with much of the ceremony, though formal intentions were declared and witnessed by Niccolò as notary, presents were given (to the girls, who were delighted, of course), and a feast, cooked with love by Lorenzo, was enjoyed by all. I had no one to decide upon my dowry for me, so I made my own arrangements. It was a easy decision: I shall simply bring to this marriage everything I own. Luca has agreed that this seems eminently reasonable.

But if the earlier parts of the proceedings were somewhat rushed, we had a truly lovely Ring Day.

The evening before, I had knelt before little Father Ippolito on the other side of the partition in the dingy and sour-smelling confessional box at San Giacomo degli Spagnoli, and finally shed the weight of all the years of guilt, pouring out to him every last fear and regret, and admitting for the first time to the true extent of my terror of damnation. I'm afraid I wept as I told him that it was all over—for ever; tears of relief and shame; of fatigue and an exhilarating release from dread.

He paused for a long, long moment before offering me my absolution.

On the day itself, Niccolò came again to the house in the Via Santa Lucia. He helped Luca to put the ring on the fourth finger of my right hand, just as he should, and Luca sweetly gave rings to Beata and Bella, too. They are far too big for them—Luca bought them for when they are grown up—so both girls are now wearing their treasures on ribbons around their necks.

I had a present too. Luca gave me his grandmother's bridal belt. You don't see them very often anymore. It is truly beautiful—dark-blue velvet, decorated with dozens of delicate silver medallions—and I felt entirely honoured as he wound it three times around my waist, and kissed me as he fastened it.

We walked together, with the girls, up to San Giacomo for the blessing. I was pleased that it was Father Ippolito who gave it; after everything, it seemed fitting. He appeared a little bemused, perhaps, but despite the bashful glances he kept casting in my direction, he managed to utter the prayers we needed, and Luca and I and the girls all walked back to Luca's house as the thickening light of evening sent purple shadows crawling into every corner of every street along the way. Luca and I took our time, and the girls danced merrily along ahead of us.

***

Luca stands now at the foot of his bed and holds my hands in his. Pulling his arms out sideways and backward, he brings me in toward him and kisses my mouth. For a moment we are connected only by the kiss, our arms outstretched, but, when Luca releases my fingers, we hold each other close. Then, taking his mouth from mine, he says, “Turn around.”

I turn and face away from him.

Kissing the nape of my neck, he loosens the lacing of my dress. To use Gianni's term, he
surprises
me all over again, and that surprise shivers down through my throat and pushes deep into my belly. He pulls the lacings from their eyelets and, after a moment's work, eases my dress from me in one; it falls to the floor around my feet, leaving me in my shift. Pressing up against my back, Luca reaches around me and, holding me in to his body with his hands on my breasts, he begins to kiss me again, just below my right ear.

“Can I confess something?” he asks quietly with his mouth still against my neck. “Something rather shameful.”

I nod, my skin prickling.

He lips the lobe of my ear. “I am the most terrible hypocrite,” he says, and I
feel
the word whispering against my skin as much as hear it. I arch my back so that my breasts push out against his fingers; he draws me back in toward him.

“Hypocrite? Why on earth…do you say that?” I ask, struggling to concentrate on what he is saying.

“Because…” he says, pausing every now and then to plant another kiss on my neck, “because, after all those uncaring things I said…after all that terrible, self-righteous disapproval…” One hand has now pulled up my shift and is sliding up toward my buttocks. I cannot suppress a little gasp. “After all that…” he says. “I have to admit to finding it…quite unaccountably arousing…to be undressing a whore.”

I turn around and look up into his face.

He pauses. “It's been the same each time. Does that make you angry? I think it probably should.”

I pull my shift off over my head and, naked, press up against the scratchy wool of his doublet front. I shake my head. “No, Luca, it doesn't. Not angry at all.” I take from him his doublet and shirt. Almost certain what his answer will be, I ask him, “In all those years you were on your own, Luca, did you ever…?”

He shakes his head as he takes off the rest of his clothes and climbs with me through the green hangings.

“Did you ever think about it?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Often,” he says, with a wry smile.

I run my fingers over his body, stroking every part of him except the one place I know he will most want me to touch. The omission is deliberate. It will be worth the wait. “When you thought about it, all those times,” I say, “what did you most want a whore to do?”

After a moment's hesitation, Luca tells me, simply and honestly. I am moved by the intimacy and charmed by the revelation. Kneeling up, I say, “Well…would you like to do that now, then? Now that you have a whore of your own in your bed?”

Luca stares at me and then smiles. His eyes dance and he nods.

***

I open my eyes and then shut them again quickly: a thin blade of bright light, cutting through a narrow gap in the shutters, is lying across my face. I turn away from the window and reach out for Luca.

He's asleep, but at my touch, he smiles at me. “I want you always to be here,” he says. “Always be here with me. I don't ever want to wake alone in this bed again.”

“I don't intend ever again to sleep anywhere but where you are.”

Luca draws me in close. I curl up against him, my head on his shoulder, my legs bent up and draped over his knees. We lie like that for several long, drowsy moments. And then Luca says, “Can I ask you something?”

Entirely unsuspecting, I reply, “Of course. Anything.”

He pauses. “How did you come by that scar on your back?”

I hold my breath. For a moment I am rocked by an image of Gianni's worried frown, as he asked almost the same question all those weeks ago, and remember my giddy inability even to contemplate the memory. But here, now, in Luca's arms, something extraordinary happens. I close my eyes and bring to mind what took place that day, and, although the pictures come promptly and are still vivid, it seems to me now as if that memory concerns someone else; it happened, yes, but not to me, and I find that I am recalling it dispassionately. I feel, strangely, a wash of detached compassion for the victim of that night's catastrophe, as though she were not me, but a friend—someone I knew well, I think, someone I liked, but in the end, someone who has moved on, out of my life. “It was a long time ago,” I say. “In another existence. A man I hardly knew. A man with rage in his heart and drink in his belly and a knife in his hand.”

Luca stares at me. Then, holding my shoulders, just as Gianni did that time, he turns me to lie on my front, and draws the covers away from me. I feel his fingers tracing along the line of puckered flesh for a few seconds, and then he too, like his son, bends and kisses my scar—once, twice, three times. His mouth is warm and dry and tender, and it seems to me now that these kisses complete in me the cataclysmic changes that his son's kiss began.

I turn back toward him.

“I love you, Luca,” I say.

He smiles. We look into each other's eyes, saying nothing, just drinking each other in. Then, “Good,” Luca says. “I'm so very glad you do. Because that's just as it should be.” He holds my face and kisses my mouth.

“Can I ask
you
something now?” I say.

“What,
cara
?”

“Does having the girls here make things difficult for you?”

He pulls back from me and props himself up on one elbow. “Difficult? Why on earth do you say that? They're delightful—I love having them here! What do you mean, ‘difficult'?”

I hesitate. “Because of Gianni and Carlo. Because they're your boys, and they were here and now they're not, but my children are. In their place.”

Luca takes my hand. “Oh
, cara
, no. Don't think it for a second. Gianni is a young man, not a boy anymore. I'd been thinking for some time that he was about ready to go off and explore the world. He'll be back—I am quite sure of it. And as for Carlo…” His face darkens a little. “I think I lost Carlo a long time ago.”

I squeeze his fingers. He grips my hand more tightly and says, “Don't ever underestimate my gratitude to you for what you did for Carlo. You, of all people. He didn't deserve it. You saved him from the sort of death no human being should ever even have to contemplate, despite what he had done to those girls of yours, and I'll never forget it.”

Neither of us speaks for several minutes. We lie next to each other, hands clasped, each lost in our own thoughts. Then Luca grabs me, rolls over with me until he is on his back and I am lying on top of him, and says, “But now, there must be no more looking back. Understood?”

I nod.

“We must look forward. And the first thing we'll find when we do, is the visit of the Lavianos to this house this afternoon. Which, I have to admit, might not perhaps be the easiest of occasions.”