hair is dressed well, Hafeza. It’s windy and snow is threatening. And put her in those zoccoli we bought last week – the ones with the exceptionally high heels. Salzi can help her if she finds it too difficult to walk.’ She added something else in Hafeza’s language. Hafeza paused then nodded. A little nub of resistance within me tightened. I wondered what was said.
‘When you’re ready.’ Giaconda reverted back to Serenissian. ‘I will meet you in the portego for a light breakfast. You will need your energy today, Tarlo. It will be a very long one.’
I curtsied as Giaconda, pausing to pick up the pamphlet by my bed, cast me a meaningful glance and, accompanied by a half-smile, swept from the room. I looked coldly at Hafeza. ‘You had better be quick then,’ I said, ignoring the hurt that flashed in her brown eyes.
IT WAS MIDDAY BEFORE WE LEFT the casa and boarded the gondola. Unlike the day we attended the execution, Giaconda eschewed the felze and sat in the bow. As instructed, I sat beside her, wrapped in my woollen cape and with my mask firmly secured over the upper half of my face. I had been taught exactly how to sit, to look straight ahead and resist the urge to turn my head. We were on display.
Hafeza and another servant, a young girl named Rosalina, a kitchen drab garbed in one of my old dresses so as to look like a lady’s maid, perched themselves atop the felze near Salzi, who was rowing, facing towards us. They too remained very still. We presented quite a picture, four women, our dresses fanned against the shiny adamantine surface of the craft, and the tall, elegant boatman with his navy blue coat, his white shirt contrasting with the sun-kissed flesh of his face, his fine hose and straw hat with the striped ribbon that whipped the back of his neck.
We passed by other gondolas carrying a mix of passengers or bearing fruit, vegetables and a range of saleable wares. The gondoliers maintained a constant stream of chatter, calling out when a bank of fog descended so as to avoid collision. One craft glided very close and I caught a brief glimpse of a rather lined face peering out of the window of the felze. On spying us, it withdrew with a noise of disgust and drew the shutter across swiftly.
‘Pretend you didn’t notice,’ said Giaconda, her lips barely moving. ‘That’s simply Nobile Maggiore’s mother. Her kind does not stand the likes of you or me. They think if they do not see us, we can’t exist. She will be most displeased that she’s set eyes upon us and thus confirmed our presence.’ She gave a small laugh. Beneath her bravado, I could sense resentment. She too was the daughter of a nobile, but begotten on a courtesan, therefore she would never be embraced by her father’s peers. It was so strange that though she was a Maleovelli, she would never be truly admitted to the circles her father occupied.
The irony was that, as a courtesan, she had so much more freedom than the daughters and wives of Nobile Maggiore, of the other nobiles’ wives and daughters. Below the mask, her chin had taken on a determined jut and her mouth was fixed in a smile. Even this freedom exacted a toll.
That hadn’t occurred to me before. It wasn’t so much that Giaconda didn’t care, it was that she couldn’t afford to. Like me, she was forever an outsider. I wanted to reach out and let Giaconda know that I, of all people, understood. But I knew she would pull away. If I was to succeed as a courtesan in these circumstances then I could not care about her either. That she made it easy didn’t placate me. I quashed my sorrow at the thought.
A large arch emerged out of the mist and, and we passed under the Ponte della Pensieri, the main bridge connecting the Ridotto to the Barnabotti Sestiere. Crowds of people jostled against the sides, many looking down upon us. There were cries of ‘Bellissima!’ Something fell into the gondola and I almost leapt from my seat in fright.
‘Steady,’ said Giaconda, placing a hand on my knee.
To my astonishment, two long-stemmed roses lay at the bottom of the boat. Melon-coloured petals were strewn across the seat. Hafeza slid off the felze and picked them up. A few more had missed the gondola and landed in the water, becoming