Courtesan's Lover (29 page)

“Perhaps, if we had listened more carefully,” I say, and Luca's gaze lifts back to my eyes, “we would find that we neither of us care much for Ariosto at all.”

“Perhaps not, but I shall always be particularly grateful to him, whatever the quality of his verse.”

He leans forward, over horizontal oars, now seeking my mouth with his own. He tastes of salt, and his lips are cool and wind-dry.

***

I sit on my uncomfortable thwart, watching Luca's hands on the oars, feeling as content as I think I have ever felt in my life. The rhythmic sounds of the oars are comforting, pleasing. Droplets of water flick from the blades as Luca rows, landing like little cold needles on the sun-warm skin of my arms and the light dazzles as it catches on the ruffled surface of the water. Luca rows on and on. I watch the muscles in his forearms shifting as he pulls at the oars. Our knees bump together on every stroke.

Mergellina, when we arrive, proves to be a tiny fishing village nestling between a bank of imposing rocky hills and the sea. The harbor is small and neat, and is packed with little boats, both moored and sailing. There seem to be no more than a couple of streets leading away from the waterfront, and a ribbon of a road leads out of the village, obviously heading back toward Napoli.

We row on past the harbor entrance.

“There,” says Luca, holding the ends of both oars with one hand and pointing. “Can you see over there behind that big rock?”

A pause, while I follow his outstretched finger, and nod.

“Just between the rock and that dark patch of headland—that's the inlet. We're almost there. Hungry?”

Oh, yes, I think as I nod. Yes, I am. Very. But not necessarily for food.

Beata and Isabella Felizzi sat on the doorstep, each girl's face wearing an identical scowl. Beata scuffed at the dust with the heel of her shoe and watched as a pebble skittered away from her. Bella picked irritably at a scab on the back of her hand.

“I'm
glad
Ilaria is going. And Sebastiano,” Beata said. There was a short pause and then she added, “Sebastiano smells of fish.”

“And Ilaria's always cross,” her sister agreed.

“Always.”

“I'm glad Modesto will be coming here instead of them,” Bella said. “And Lorenzo.”

“Even if he is so fat.”

The girls, despite their ill temper, looked at each other and smothered a snorted giggle.

“I wish Desto was here already,” Bella said, her smile fading again.

Beata fiddled with the fastening of her shoe. “Why don't we go and see him?” she said.

“When?”

“Now.”

“Ilaria won't want to go.”

Beata paused, licked her lips, and then said quietly, “Ilaria needn't come. It can be just us.”

“Ilaria told us to stay here,” Bella said.

“She won't notice if we don't stay too long at Desto's house. She hasn't spoken to us for ages.”

The twins stared at each other as the enormity of their disobedience mushroomed up between them. They both turned and looked over their shoulders in at the open front door. Ilaria was nowhere to be seen.

They stood up.

“We don't know if Desto will be at his house…” Bella said.

“If he's not, we can just come home again.”

“We must be back before Mamma gets home.”

Imagining her mother's anger, and determining to avoid provoking it, Beata nodded and took Bella's hand; they glanced up and down the street, checked behind them once more, and set off, hand in hand, toward the house in the Via San Tommaso.

***

Ilaria sat heavily down onto the taller of the two stools in the kitchen. Reaching toward the basket of cannelini beans, she grasped a handful of beanpods and dropped them into her lap. She ran a dirty thumbnail down the outer seam of the pod, pushed her thumb into the slit, levered it open down the length of the bean, and pattered the contents out into a small pewter bowl.

“A disgrace!” she muttered. “Two good years I've given that woman and now it's dismissal without a word of warning! A disgrace, that's what I call it…When you
think
of what I know about her and her carryings-on. Shameless, she is. Quite shameless!”

Ilaria flung the now empty pod onto the floor at her feet.

The pile of podded beans in the small pewter bowl grew steadily larger, the heap of pods on the floor spread wider, and Ilaria continued to mutter angrily under her breath as she worked.

She paid not a moment's heed to the two children she had last seen sitting on the front door sill as she had passed through the hallway from the
sala
upstairs.

***

Weighing the pommel of a short-bladed, damascened sword in the palm of his hand, Carlo della Rovere, a calculated sneer of pitying incredulity on his face, said to the armorer, “You're actually being serious? You're expecting me to pay that much—for
this
?”

The armorer shrugged; entirely unconcerned by Carlo's critical tone, he scratched the back of his neck with a short length of unworked iron. “If you don't wish to buy it, Signore, there are plenty who do.”

“Good. I'm delighted to hear it. I'll leave it to them, then.” Carlo stared at the armorer for several seconds. The armorer, tall, bulky and solidly muscular, stared back, unabashed. Finally, Carlo handed back the sword. He turned away and began to walk down the Via San Giacomo, sensing the armorer's gaze upon his back. Fully aware that he had lost face, he tried to swagger, attempted to present an unconcerned back view, but nonetheless ducked down the first side street he came to. He pushed his hands into his breeches pockets and strode on past covered shops and stalls, ignoring the handful of chickens and ducks that scattered out of his way with a clatter of irritable wings as he walked.

Some few seconds farther on, however, he checked, as two little girls started and sidestepped at his approach. Seeing them there, he recognized them at once, and, realizing that this time they were alone, he smiled. An entirely mirthless smile. The ill-thought-out plan for retribution against Signora Felizzi that he had suggested to Michele the other day—a plan which, until this moment, he knew had been little more than an intoxicating idea—seemed suddenly entirely possible. Fate appeared to be smiling upon him, for a change. The hairs on his arms rose as he remembered the details of the conversation he had had that day with
.

***

“So, tell me, Signore,” he says to the little privateer, “tell me about your most…interesting…voyage over the last few months.”

stares at him without speaking for a moment, twisting the little plaits beneath his up-tilted chin around his forefinger, then says, “I prefer not to discuss past successes,
Sinjur
.
”
He smiles—a twisted smile, showing the gap in his teeth. “We seamen are superstitious,
Sinjur
. The sea is a capricious mistress and we try never to do anything to annoy her; anything that might ever tempt her to exact any sort of revenge upon us. Boasting of past exploits might seem to her to be…presumptuous.”

“All right then,” Carlo says. “Tell me about something you might do in the future.”

“Mmm. Well. That would be asking for trouble too, do you not think?”

Irritated
now, Carlo swallows the remains of his
grappa
and
says, “Well, just tell me something interesting. Anything.”

A
pause.

“I suppose I might be able to tell you about a discussion I had a few months ago.”

Carlo
raises
an
eyebrow.

leans
back
in
his
chair. He links his fingers together and stretches his arms up above his head, cracking his knuckles. He says, eyes fixed upon Carlo's face, “Now, at the end of a mission,
Sinjur
, the hold of the
is
usually
stacked
with
gold. Or silks, or spices, or other…ill-gotten gains. Inanimate things we've collected, which lie uncomplaining in barrels or boxes, ready to be unloaded at the end of the voyage and then passed to
ricettatori
,
Sinjur
, such as yourself.” He pecks a nod toward Carlo in acknowledgment.

Carlo
frowns, unsure where
is heading.

“Well,
Sinjur
, some six months ago, we were stranded for several days in a little port a few miles up the coast from Tunis. Pretty place. Hot, mind. And—from time to time—windless. We were there near on two weeks. Spent a fair bit of my time ashore, and one night I found myself in conversation with a most interesting gentleman who—after discovering something of my way of life—made me an interesting suggestion. How shall I put it? He suggested that, should I ever chance upon any…any fair-skinned young ladies who might—or then again might not—wish to travel out his way, he might be able to reimburse me and my men quite handsomely for the privilege of having transported these ladies so far from their homes.” He pauses, then adds, “The younger the better, apparently. So the gentleman said.”

A
shiver
of
slightly
nauseous
prurience
runs
down
into
Carlo's belly. “And have you ever…?” He finishes his question with a nod and a raised eyebrow.

“
No,
Sinjur.
I
have
not. As I say, I always seem to have the hold full of inanimate merchandise. Rather than…living cargo.”
licks his lips. “But that's not to say that I wouldn't,” he adds. “If the opportunity ever arose.”