In the Company of the Courtesan: A Novel
Sarah Dunant
Language: English
Pages: 385
ISBN: 0812974042
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman Emperor’s army blew a hole in the wall of God’s eternal city, letting in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops bent on pillage and punishment.
Thus begins In the Company of the Courtesan, Sarah Dunant’s epic novel of life in Renaissance Italy. Escaping the sack of Rome in 1527, with their stomachs churning on the jewels they have swallowed, the courtesan Fiammetta and her dwarf companion, Bucino, head for Venice, the shimmering city born out of water to become a miracle of east-west trade: rich and rancid, pious and profitable, beautiful and squalid.
With a mix of courage and cunning they infiltrate Venetian society. Together they make the perfect partnership: the sharp-tongued, sharp-witted dwarf, and his vibrant mistress, trained from birth to charm, entertain, and satisfy men who have the money to support her.
Yet as their fortunes rise, this perfect partnership comes under threat, from the searing passion of a lover who wants more than his allotted nights to the attentions of an admiring Turk in search of human novelties for his sultan’s court. But Fiammetta and Bucino’s greatest challenge comes from a young crippled woman, a blind healer who insinuates herself into their lives and hearts with devastating consequences for them all.
A story of desire and deception, sin and religion, loyalty and friendship, In the Company of the Courtesan paints a portrait of one of the world’s greatest cities at its most potent moment in history: It is a picture that remains vivid long after the final page.
From the Hardcover edition.
the celebrations. This is not the time to get into disagreements, for tempers will flare easily. On the bridge leading to the back of her house, a sullen mule is pulling a cart with barrels filled with black slop. Both my lady and I are dressed modestly enough, but I can feel her nervous next to me. It is a while since she has walked the poorer parts of town, and her elegance and my size will inevitably draw attention to us. In the dank canal, the dredging has begun. Half a dozen men are up to
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
woman driven more by business than by homesickness. But no man yearns for fresh young flesh when it is managed by a body with the pox. She must have known it was coming even then. Better to die in private and leave your daughter the spoils. I wait until she gets the mouthful in. “Actually, Meragosa, you’re wrong,” I say quietly. And I lift the purse in my hand so that the coins rattle a little against themselves and the rubies. “That’s not how it happened at all.” “What d’you mean?” “I mean
procreation. While sodomy will send a man to the stake faster than it will a woman, in the eyes of the Church, it is a grievous sin for both. And while I hear there are a few scholars and medical doctors now who argue the case for pleasure within marriage as an aid to the begetting of healthy children (my lady’s own cardinal had been one of a group of emerging thinkers who were eager to defeat heresy by reforming the mother Church), the pleasure must still come in straight lines. The wife lies
God, have you been spying on me?” “No. No. I slept badly. And then woke to the sound of his boat leaving.” She stares at me as if to check that this is the truth. But I can lie as well as she when it is needed. We did not become partners in this game by accident. She makes an impatient gesture with her hand, for it is clear that now she is exposed, she cannot lie. “It was nothing. I mean, he…simply stopped on his way home to give me something.” “A gift. How generous. Did you receive it lying