Read Online In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant - Free Book Online Page B

between the slats of the bed. When I was young, that was my mother’s safe place for the money she earned.”
    She handed it to me. It was heavy, but the glass was still fine enough to do its work. I caught a glimpse of a face under a great misshapen dome of a forehead, and just for an instant I was surprised by myself again, for, unlike the rest of the world, I do not register my ugliness daily. Compared with me, my lady is a newly risen Venus. But then my looks do not earn our living.
    â€œI have been looking at myself in that mirror ever since I was a child, Bucino. Studying my reflection was part of my training. The glass was a gift to my mother from a man who ran a shop in the Merceria. It used to be mounted on the wall next to the bed and covered by a little curtain to keep the sun off the silver. There was a shelf underneath, where she kept pots of oils and perfume, and she would pick me up every day to see myself—”
    â€œHunger distorts the world as badly as tarnished glass,” I interrupted. “Eat something, and then we’ll talk.”
    She shook her head impatiently. “—and each and every time I looked she would say, ‘I don’t do this for you to become vain, Fiammetta, but because beauty is your gift from God and it should be used and not squandered. Study this face as if it were a map of the ocean, your own trade route to the Indies. For it will bring you its own fortune. But always believe what the glass tells you. Because while others will try to flatter you, it has no reason to lie.’ ”
    She stopped. I said nothing.
    â€œSo, Bucino, is it lying now? If so, you had better tell me, because we are the only sailors left together in this enterprise.”
    I took a breath. If I had had wit enough, I suppose I might have embroidered the truth a little, since she had lived her whole life on the rich cream of compliment, and without it her spirit would become as enervated as her body. If I had had wit enough…
    â€œYou are ill,” I said. “And thin as a street whore. Hardship has eaten your flesh away. But it is only flesh, and food will make you plump again.”
    â€œWell-picked words, Bucino.” She took the mirror from me and held it briefly up in front of her. “Now,” she said. “Tell me about my face.”
    â€œYour skin is dull. Your scalp is scabby, you have too little hair, and there is a cut that rises into your hairline. But your glow will come back, and if you fashion it right, your hair, once it grows again, will easily disguise the flaw that remains.”
    â€œOnce it grows again! Look at me, Bucino. I am bald.” And her voice was like a child’s wail.
    â€œYou are cropped.”
    â€œNo. Bald.” She put her head down toward me, her fingers moving across her scalp. “Look, feel! Here. And here. And here. There is no hair, or none that will grow again. My scalp is like ridges of earth after a drought. Feel it. Look at it. I am bald. Oh, sweet Jesus…this is what comes from the spite of skinny German cows. I should just have lifted my skirts in the hall and let the men at me. The pricks of two dozen Protestants would have been easier to bear than this.”
    â€œYou think so? And how would it have been once they turned their lust into your sin and butchered us all to assuage their guilt?”
    â€œHah! At least we would have died more quickly. Now we shall starve slowly from my ugliness. Look at me. What price my talents in bed now? I am bald, God damn it, Bucino. And we are lost.”
    â€œNo,” I said, my voice as fierce as hers. “I am not lost, though you may be. You are certainly half starved and infected with melancholy and melodrama.”
    â€œOh. And when did I give you permission to insult me?”
    â€œWhen you started insulting yourself. We are partners now, remember? It was you who promised that if I could haul my carcass here, then together we could