Daughters of the Doge (32 page)

In the end it was agreed that I would return, and I turned to Veronica gratefully.

‘That was kind of you, Veronica. Thank you. Now I will have an opportunity to make some friends here in Venice and to learn a skill also. What can I do for you in return?’

Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly as she considered whether I was having fun with her. Finally she replied.

‘I would like to meet your companion, the English earl. Jacopo says he is from an ancient royal family, the Plantagenets. Is that so?’

I agreed that it was so, but, aware that Courtenay was soon to leave for Ferrara, I answered carefully. ‘I should be happy to make an introduction, Veronica. The earl is of a careful and suspicious nature; may I tell him the purpose of the meeting, for he is sure to ask?’

She put her head on one side, at the same time coquettish and considering. How well she played these little games – no doubt she would sparkle in the company of courtiers and ambassadors.

‘Will you walk me home when Tintoretto has finished with me? Then, perhaps, I can explain more fully.’

I saw Gentile and Jacopo glance at each other and realized that they were reading signs in the conversation that I appeared to be missing. I had nothing to lose. She was beautiful and interesting and I had no commitments for the rest of the day. I wondered how far her house was from where we were now and what the correct etiquette was in Venice.

‘It will be a pleasure. Shall we walk or perhaps we will take a gondola together?’

She smiled and took my hand. ‘Perhaps there will be time for us to do both? Who knows?’

C
HAPTER
38

Afternoon, March the 21st 1556 – a small
palazzo
overlooking the Grand Canal

‘No. Please . . . I will pay him.’ Veronica paid the gondolier and led the way up the stone steps to her rooms on the first floor of the
palazzo.
‘A woman needs what independence she can get.’

The words were thrown over her shoulder as we climbed.

It had been a short but instructive journey. Cutting through the small back canals from the Rio della Sensa, crossing the Rio della Misericordia and finding the little Rio di San Marcuola, we had finally come to an old and rather tired-looking
palazzo
beside the Grand Canal. We were opposite the Palazzo Ferrara owned by Duke Ercole, who was expecting our own Earl of Devon to join him in Ferrara in a few days’ time. What a close little world this was.

The gondolier had chatted to Veronica like an old friend and for the whole journey she had called out to friends and pointed out places of interest. Although the city was said to have a population of a hundred thousand, that population quickly broke down into a number of groups, who appeared to live their lives largely separately. The nobility entertained each other in their
palazzi
on the Grand Canal; the shipwrights lived and worked in the Arsenale; the merchants, the Jews and the Germans each lived in their own quarters; and the nuns were safely hidden away in the convents. And all of the time the
popolani
toiled unrecorded and unrecognized down below, making the whole edifice possible.

What brought everybody together was trade and commerce. The desire to make money was the one activity that crossed all social barriers, and the painful thought hit me that Veronica’s familiarity with citizens of all classes stemmed directly from her life as a courtesan. Now circumstances had brought me into that life, although in exactly what capacity I was not sure. As we entered her rooms, I had a feeling that I was about to find out.

Like many of the
palazzi
I had visited since arriving in the city, the inside of this one had fared a great deal better than the outside. The salty humidity of the lagoon was around us all the time – not least on this sultry afternoon, when a heavy but warm mist hung over the whole city and invaded even these splendid rooms.

The air was still and no birds were singing. It would have been oppressive if the stink of a few weeks ago had prevailed, but all of that was gone. The houses had been washed through and swept, and up here on the
piano nobile
Veronica had arranged spring flowers and bowls of early imported lemons to scent the atmosphere.

I walked over to the windows, edged the shutters apart and looked out across the Grand Canal.

‘What a beautiful house. Has it been in your family for long?’

She turned right round, facing upward, as if seeing it for the first time. ‘If you mean, do I own it? The answer is no. But it is, in a sense, in my family, and I am comfortable here.’ It was a clever answer. It would have been rude of me to pursue the matter further, yet in truth I remained uninformed.

‘Richard, please take some wine to refresh yourself, and some of these
biscotti.
They are made especially for me. Now, please excuse me for a few moments. The view is ever-varying; please enjoy it.’

I took a glass of wine and a biscuit and pushed the shutters wider. We were in the crook of the elbow of the Grand Canal, on the north side, with clear views south-west and south-east. Everywhere was activity. We were too far up the canal to see the great trading ships, but smaller vessels scurried hither and thither, each on its own mission to turn a profit from the day’s activity.

Veronica returned, dressed now in a loose gown and looking cooler and refreshed. We stood next to each other at the window, eating the
biscotti
and sipping the Malvasia, which somehow her servants had kept chilled. She stood to my right, very close, and moved with fluid and easy movements, indicating this and commenting on that.Whenever she drew my attention to something to her far right, it always seemed to require my leaning right across her to see it properly, whilst objects of interest to our far left seemed to require her to lean hard against my chest, her fresh perfume rising from her.

She took my hand and held it between hers. The top of her head was at the level of my chin, and as she lifted her head to speak to me, tipping it to one side, the line of her neck, her throat and her cleavage presented one continuous invitation.

‘You are warm. Perhaps uncomfortable. I am forgetting my manners. Come through here where it is cooler.’

She led me to the next room where the shutters were firmly closed, the light reflected through their slats from the waters of the canal sending flickering beams of gold and silver on to the painted ceiling. In the centre of the room was a large bath. Beside it, a chair held towels; another awaited discarded clothes. Before me, alongside the bath, ran a deep crimson Turkish rug; the whole resembling a composition for a painting by one of the
maestri.

Gently, she led me forward.

‘Please, don’t be shy – undress and step in. It will cool you.’

For a moment I hesitated, but she waved me on and I did as I was invited, feeling like an actor in a play. My jerkin fitted over the back of the chair. Turning, I sat on the chair and removed my boots and hose, then stood on the perfectly placed rug and put them in place, the boots below the chair, my hose upon its seat. Now I was standing opposite her, with only my long shirt remaining. Again I hesitated.

‘Let’s do it together. I will use this chair and you that one.’

She slipped off her gown and folded it carefully across the back of the opposite chair, leaving the towels in reach. I looked at her nakedness, shimmering in the flickering light through the shutters. Titian and Tintoretto had not exaggerated: she was as beautiful as they had painted her.

I followed her example and folded my shirt over the nearer chair. She looked at my body, unembarrassed and appraisingly, as I had just done hers, then reached out her hand across the bath and took mine.

‘Come, I have bathed already. It’s your turn now.’

I stepped in and lay back in the cool water. She knelt beside the bath and stroked my hair.

‘Let me wash your hair. Close your eyes.’

I obeyed. As if without a will of my own, I bent my knees, sank down into the water until it closed cool above my head, then raised myself again, water streaming off my hair, with my eyes firmly shut. Never in my life could I remember submitting myself to the will of another person – man or woman – since I was old enough to walk.

I felt her pour water over my head and begin to soap my hair. Her movement must have made me open my eyes again, and I must have lifted my head, for she ran the palm of her hand downward, over my nose and eyes, as if closing the eyes of a dead man for the last time, and eased me backward. For a moment, that thought made me want to fight her, and regain my self-control, but she left her hand on my forehead and whispered.

‘Don’t fight me. Let go. You are safe here. Just relax and feel the water. If you concentrate, you can move your mind from one sense to another. Try to think as a blind man does. Listen.’

I listened. I could hear the water in the bath lapping. Slowly, I began to distinguish between the sound of the bathwater and the noises from the canal below. Music came to me, at first very quietly: a lute, played slowly, cadences rippling gently with the water. Always calm, played not sharply with the fingernails but softly with the fingertips alone, caressing the strings, as she caressed my hair. I felt so safe; I began, quietly, to cry.

‘What is it called?’ My words were only a whisper, my throat constricted with emotion.

‘It is a Venetian melody.
Laudato Dio.
Written fifty years ago by a musician called Juan Ambrosio Dalza.Alessandro often plays it at this time of day. Keep your eyes closed.’

I lay back and let the music wash over me as the water did the same. The music stopped and I began to return to my other senses. She put her hand over my eyes again.

‘Don’t open your eyes. You have put sight to one side. Now do the same with hearing. Let the sounds disappear and concentrate on feeling. Feel the water. Feel the warm breeze coming through the shutters. Now feel the difference in temperature between the water at the bottom of the bath and that near the surface.’

I felt her wrap a towel around my head, like a turban, gently but effectively covering my eyes and my ears. As she did so, her touch never left me and when the turban was in place her hand dropped gently to my shoulder and remained there, as if comforting me.

‘What can you feel?’

Her words were faint through the towelling. I concentrated hard. I had stopped fighting and was happy simply doing as I was told. Yes, I could feel it.

‘The cold water has sunk to the bottom. The surface water is warmer.’

‘Correct. Feel it.’

Her lips were close to my ear as she spoke.

‘Feel the air moving over the water.’

I lay still, concentrating.

‘First it is hot.’

I felt hot moist air on my chest.

‘Now it is cool.’

This time the flow of air was cool, and further down my belly. I felt my skin tighten and realized she was breathing hot breaths then pursing her lips and blowing cold ones across me, probably watching the reaction of my skin as the temperature changed. The thought that she was watching me so closely, lying here, naked and only partly covered by water, began to arouse me. Another warm breath, then she blew cool air again. This time there was no mistake where the draught was directed, and I felt myself harden, until my manhood began to lift clear of the water.