Veronica COURTESAN Read Online Free PDF Page B

pricks into all our orifices, and these men think I am a boy so the desired orifice is obvious. My heart is in danger of pounding out of my chest…
    They’re herding me towards the bridge on the other side of the palazzo. All of a sudden the crowd starts shouting, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’
    A mass of flailing bodies, and we grind to a halt; there’s nowhere else to go. I know what’s happening; I’ve heard about the battles that take place on feast days between men from one half of the neighbourhoods of Venice against the other half. The Castellani against the Nicolotti. They’re shouting and singing: slogans, war chants composed around the names of different fighters.
    If I drive myself through the throng and can get to the edge of the water, I’ll be able to clamber onto one of the pontoons covering the canal. They’re made from boats and gondolas lashed together and floored with wooden planks as viewing platforms for the richer citizens: merchants, politician crows, even some white-frocked clergy and friars. They’ll have paid highly for their viewpoints; the fight will be a savage one and there are small fortunes to be made from betting on the outcome. Madre di Dio! I have no coin on me, but I’ll cross that bridge (ha! ha!) when I come to it.
    There must be a hundred idiots on the ponte , with at least as many more crammed onto the ramps, screaming and pushing from behind. Those in the middle can only move forwards by knocking their opponents down and trampling them, or throwing them into the canal. The battle is simple: one side has to drive the other backwards far enough to take the bridge. Some of them are brandishing weapons, long sticks with sharpened ends, but there’s no room to wield them effectively, and most of the men are using their fists. In the middle of the bridge, a small space has opened up around two of the combatants, big fellows stripped and sweating, both heavy with muscle and clasped in a fierce embrace, their legs knotted together.
    I see my chance and start to elbow my way past them. Except, I’m being pushed towards the edge of the bridge. Dio mio! I’m about to fall in and drown. ‘Help!’
    Someone grabs me and pulls me against him. ’Tis my blond admirer. ‘Stupid boy coming up here,’ he says.
    I hang onto him; we’re being squashed by the crowd. He’s taller than me, and can see his way clear. He carries me with him and soon we’ve popped out of the throng, to land back on the waterfront before the Doge’s Palace.
    He gives me a stiff bow, his eyes warm. ‘My name is Ludovico Ramberti, and, unless I’m very much mistaken, those were a pair of tits I felt just now.’
    I colour, about to drop a curtsey which I rapidly change into a bow. ‘ Grazie for coming to my rescue, Signor Ramberti. I’m Veronica Franco and I’d be grateful if you’d kindly escort me home to my mother. She’s probably worried to death about me.’
     

     
    It turns out that Mamma knows Signor Ramberti. She nods approvingly after he’s taken his leave. ‘He’s extremely wealthy. The owner of an apothecary shop on the Rialto Bridge. If you’re ready to diversify, I think he’ll make a good patron.’
    ‘What about Jacomo?’ I’m tucked up in bed with a glass of vin santo . Mamma was furious when I got home, whether from worry at her potential loss of income or concern for me I’ve yet to decide, but when she realised who my rescuer was, she became all sweetness and light.
    ‘Jacomo has been taking you for granted. I think a bit of competition will do him good.’
    ‘If you say so. But I think Signor Ramberti prefers men to women.’
    ‘Poof! ’Tis easily fixed. If he has a penchant for your arse, all you need to do is grease it with goose fat.’ She laughs and I join in with her, if a little uncertainly. I’m not sure if I shall like being sodomised. Then I think, perhaps Ludovico knows the right people to introduce me to literary circles? I’d do practically anything for an