had pretty faces and merry eyes and smiled a trio of smiles that were eerily alike. In fact, they reminded me of nothing so much as the three Graces, but alive not dead, clad in black not white, and as dark in countenance and feature as the Graces were fair, just as the bay outside had turned from bright to black with the end of the day. The women introduced themselves as Eulalia Ravignano, Giovanna Caracciola, and Diana Guardato. I instantly forgot which was which, but smiled with a welcome I did not feel.
“And you are the ladies of the bedchamber? Come to dress me? The slaves said you would come.”
One of them smiled wider than the other two. “We are come to dress you indeed,” she said in clear Neapolitan, albeit scattered with Spanish hisses like a basket of snakes. “But we are not tiring women. We are freeborn ladies of the court of Aragon.”
“And we all share a special relationship with Don Ferrente,” put in the second.
“Not unlike the one you enjoy with Lord Niccolò,” added the third.
Now this last I doubted, unless the three ladies were on the run from Florentine assassins after stealing a painting and enlisting the help of a total stranger who was a monk masquerading as a nobleman. But I had the drift of their hints.
“You are his mistress . . . es?”
They nodded as one.
“All of you?” But as I said it, I remembered that Don Ferrente had admitted as much himself, and owned to a wife too. I didn’t need to wait for the nod this time.
The ladies were friendly and full of life—they fluttered around me chirruping in Spanish and lifting my chin and hair, circling my waist with their hands, and discussing, clearly, what I should wear. I knew them then for what they were—not crows but blackbirds, with their beady black eyes, blue-black hair, and their heads cocked to one side as they considered my charms. But their sense of fun was infectious and I felt Chi-chi come home to roost as I joined in their discourse when they reverted to Tuscan. I felt that we were all very much alike, for what were they, in truth, but high-class whores, be they ever so noble? Bawdy and witty, they discussed their bedsport openly and asked me intimate details of my liaisons with my own lord. I could not tell them that we were as chaste as Christmastide, so had to improvise with details of my other professional couplings. They all seemed to share each other’s opinions, and finish each other’s sentences, with a fluency that suggested that they spent all their time in each other’s company. Clearly, from their stories, they shared Don Ferrente’s bed together too, all at once rather than in succession. On the subject of my “master” they were of one mind.
“By the field of stars, he’s a fine gentleman.”
“I have never seen the like.”
“He makes the others here at court look like washerwomen.”
“Excepting our lord Don Ferrente, of course.”
“By Saint Jude, I cannot wait to see him in his hose and codpiece! I’ll wager he has a fine leg, and a fine foot too.”
They cackled together. I smiled but could not confirm their guessings, for of course I had never seen Brother Guido in hose.
“Never mind him for now,” said the one who I think was called Eulalia. “Let us dress this dove as our master commanded, to equal the beauties of her lord.”
“Shall not be difficult, for she is favored like an angel.”
If they but knew. “Ladies,” I began, “there is no need to assist me. I can dress myself, if you give me a gown.”
They laughed again. “La, no, my dear!”
“ ‘Tis true it is below our place to dress you . . .”
“But our lord Don Ferrente knew we would welcome the chance to adorn such a beautiful bird. ‘Tis a project we would enjoy.”
“For believe me”—they spoke still in strict turn—“this court has few enough beauties, for most are old widows with swollen bellies and slack cunnies.”
I could well believe it. For even this trio of attractive women were of a variety of shapes and forms, and each had their failings. One had thick wrists, another snag teeth, and the third, as she bent close, had bad breath that copious use of oil of cloves had failed to cover. I could only assume she did her lord Ferrente’s service below the covers, and not face-to-face. All, too, were well into