Read Online In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant - Free Book Online
Authors: Sarah Dunant
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around.â And she turned her back on me, giving her attention to the stove.
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Of the labyrinth that is this city I will tell more later. It is its own legend anyway, made up from stories of rich visitors too mean to hire guides on their arrival, only to be found later floating in back canals with their throats cut along with their purses. I went on foot. Our back door opened onto a street barely wide enough for two people to pass each other. This in turn led to another and over a bridge to another, which finally gave onto a small square, or
campo,
as they call it. It was here I came across my old man next to his beloved well, and while his accent was coarse, his gestures were simple enough. Later, when I faltered, the streets were busy with people on their way to and from church, and the merchants I asked gave exact instructions, for as I soon learned, it is not uncommon for the Venetians to go straight from God to the Jews to raise money, the sacrament of commerce being in its own way holy for a state founded on trade.
The Ghetto, when I found it, was like a small town within a town, cordoned off by walls and great wooden gates; inside, houses and shops huddled and scrambled together. The pawnbrokersâ shops were marked by blue awnings over their fronts flapping like sails in the wind. The one I picked was run by a young man with soft, black eyes and a long face made longer by straggling curls. He took me into a back room, where he studied our last two emeralds long and hard under a special lens, Venice being a city of the most expert glass, for both magnifying and faking. Then he explained the terms of the bond as laid down by the state, gave me the document to sign, and counted out my coins. Through all of this transaction, he treated me with admirable care, exhibiting no surprise at my stature (his attention was more on the jewels than on me), though as to whether he cheated me or not, well, how would I have known, except by the feeling in my gut, which in this case was too confused by hunger?
Outside, in the heat, the smell of my own unwashed body became as pungent as the city around me. From a secondhand shop on the edge of the Ghetto, I bought a jacket and trousers that I could butcher to fit me and some fresh slips for my lady. For food I chose things easy to digest: whitefish broiled in its own juices, stewed vegetables, and soft bread, egg custards with vanilla, and half a dozen honey cakes, less moist than Baldesarâs but enough to make me drool as they sat in my hand. I ate one on the streets, and by the time I found my way back, my head was spinning with the sweetness. Through the darkness of the stairwell, I called out for Meragosa, but there was no answer. I left a portion of the food on the table and carried the rest with a bottle and chipped glasses of watered wine to the chamber.
Upstairs, my lady was awake and sitting up in the bed. She glanced at me as I came in but turned her head away swiftly. The shutters and the windows were open, and her body was free from its wrappings, with the light behind her. It was the first time in many weeks that she had felt safe enough to disrobe, and her silhouette now showed clearly the ravages of the journey. Where her flesh had once been pillow plump, her collarbones now stuck out like planks of wood, while her ribs were the skeleton of a shipâs hull pressing hard against her thin slip. But it was her head that was the worst: with her turban unraveled, oneâs eyes were drawn instantly to the scabby, cropped mess that was her hair and the jagged scar that began on her upper forehead and zigzagged its way into her hairline.
For months we had been too focused on survival to give much thought to the future. That early optimism of the night in the forest had dissolved fast enough as we got back onto the road. With the army dropping away, the refugees had become as eager to rob one another as to save themselves, and by the time we reached the port
Â
Of the labyrinth that is this city I will tell more later. It is its own legend anyway, made up from stories of rich visitors too mean to hire guides on their arrival, only to be found later floating in back canals with their throats cut along with their purses. I went on foot. Our back door opened onto a street barely wide enough for two people to pass each other. This in turn led to another and over a bridge to another, which finally gave onto a small square, or
campo,
as they call it. It was here I came across my old man next to his beloved well, and while his accent was coarse, his gestures were simple enough. Later, when I faltered, the streets were busy with people on their way to and from church, and the merchants I asked gave exact instructions, for as I soon learned, it is not uncommon for the Venetians to go straight from God to the Jews to raise money, the sacrament of commerce being in its own way holy for a state founded on trade.
The Ghetto, when I found it, was like a small town within a town, cordoned off by walls and great wooden gates; inside, houses and shops huddled and scrambled together. The pawnbrokersâ shops were marked by blue awnings over their fronts flapping like sails in the wind. The one I picked was run by a young man with soft, black eyes and a long face made longer by straggling curls. He took me into a back room, where he studied our last two emeralds long and hard under a special lens, Venice being a city of the most expert glass, for both magnifying and faking. Then he explained the terms of the bond as laid down by the state, gave me the document to sign, and counted out my coins. Through all of this transaction, he treated me with admirable care, exhibiting no surprise at my stature (his attention was more on the jewels than on me), though as to whether he cheated me or not, well, how would I have known, except by the feeling in my gut, which in this case was too confused by hunger?
Outside, in the heat, the smell of my own unwashed body became as pungent as the city around me. From a secondhand shop on the edge of the Ghetto, I bought a jacket and trousers that I could butcher to fit me and some fresh slips for my lady. For food I chose things easy to digest: whitefish broiled in its own juices, stewed vegetables, and soft bread, egg custards with vanilla, and half a dozen honey cakes, less moist than Baldesarâs but enough to make me drool as they sat in my hand. I ate one on the streets, and by the time I found my way back, my head was spinning with the sweetness. Through the darkness of the stairwell, I called out for Meragosa, but there was no answer. I left a portion of the food on the table and carried the rest with a bottle and chipped glasses of watered wine to the chamber.
Upstairs, my lady was awake and sitting up in the bed. She glanced at me as I came in but turned her head away swiftly. The shutters and the windows were open, and her body was free from its wrappings, with the light behind her. It was the first time in many weeks that she had felt safe enough to disrobe, and her silhouette now showed clearly the ravages of the journey. Where her flesh had once been pillow plump, her collarbones now stuck out like planks of wood, while her ribs were the skeleton of a shipâs hull pressing hard against her thin slip. But it was her head that was the worst: with her turban unraveled, oneâs eyes were drawn instantly to the scabby, cropped mess that was her hair and the jagged scar that began on her upper forehead and zigzagged its way into her hairline.
For months we had been too focused on survival to give much thought to the future. That early optimism of the night in the forest had dissolved fast enough as we got back onto the road. With the army dropping away, the refugees had become as eager to rob one another as to save themselves, and by the time we reached the port
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