In the Company of the Courtesan Read Online Free PDF

sound from inside the house. Someone was up and moving. Ascanio was at the door before I could answer. He was sweating again, and his breathing was rough. I went with him to the main entrance, and, because he had been a friend of sorts, I told him a back way through to near the gate of San Spirito, where yesterday there had been a city wall but now there would be a gaping hole. If he made it that far, he might stand a chance.
    Outside, in the darkness, the square was empty. “Good luck,” I said.
    He kept close to the wall, head down, and as he turned the corner, it struck me that I would never see him again.
    As I came back into the kitchen, I noticed something lying on the floor under the table, something that must have fallen from beneath his jacket as he got up to leave. I slithered down and retrieved a fabric purse. Out of it slipped a small, scarlet, leather-bound book: Petrarch’s sonnets, its perfect skin tooled with gold lettering and fixed with silver corners and an elaborate silver barrel lock with a set of numbers running across it. It was the stuff of a scholar’s library and the kind of object that would have made any printer’s reputation in a new city. I might have gone after him if I hadn’t heard footsteps on the flagstones outside. As it was, I slipped the volume underneath my doublet the second before my lady arrived in the doorway.
    She had a silk robe pulled around her, her hair tangled fiercely down her back and the skin around her mouth red and puffy from the scrape of the captain’s stubble. But her eyes were bright enough. It is one of her great talents, to make it look as if her glass empties at the same rate as those around her, and so to remain clearheaded long after their lust has blended into the alcohol.
    â€œI heard voices.” She took in the debris of the kitchen. “Who was here?”
    â€œAscanio. On his way back from Gianbattista’s studio. The painter is taken and his work destroyed.”
    â€œOh! And Marcantonio and the press? What news of them?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œAh me…” She moved to the table, sitting in his place and putting her hands palm-down on the table. She moved her head slowly to one side and the other, stretching her neck as if coming back to life after a long sleep. It is a gesture I know well, and there are times when the work is challenging or the night long and she likes me to climb up on the bench behind her and massage her shoulders. But not tonight. “Where’s Adriana?”
    I pointed to the cupboard. “Curled up with the twins.
Virgo intacta,
all of them. Though I can’t guarantee for how long. How is our captain?”
    â€œSleeping in fits and starts, thrashing around as if he were still at war.” She paused. I did not ask. I never do. Which is why, I think, she often tells me. “You should have seen him, Bucino—he was a Spaniard to his loins. So concerned with his reputation that his anxiety undermined him. Maybe he is grown sick of his own power. I think he was almost glad to have someone else taking charge after so long.” She smiled a little, but there was no wit in it. The screams would have penetrated the shutters of the bedroom as easily as they had the kitchen. “But he is young underneath the grime, and I doubt we can trust to his protection for long. We must contact the cardinal. It’s our only hope. Others will be fair-weather friends, but if he is still alive—and Charles’s troops would have reason enough to be good to him, given how he has supported the emperor’s cause in the Curia—I am sure he will help us.”
    We looked at each other over the table, both of us no doubt weighing our chances.
    â€œIn which case, I should go now,” I said, because we both knew there was no one else. “If I move quickly, I might get back before the house is awake.”
    She looked away as if it was still a matter for debate, then