Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

Nor did Francesca have any reason to hide the transaction from the watchful eyes of the Madame of the Red Cat. Prostitutes received frequent parcels from boat girls; not even a suspicious brothel keeper would wonder about this parcel. In fact, the very openness of the delivery was the surest protection. Besides, Francesca was too impatient for the pose of the languid lady. She caught the rope that Kat tossed to her and tied up the boat with her own hands. Kat threw her the package she had been waiting for, then balanced up and over the deck and onto the walkway, jumping across the water to land beside Francesca.

"Do you want to check it and make sure it's all right?" Kat asked.

The gown within the outer wrapping?a very special gown?had been an extra, ordered after the successful interview with the Madame of Casa Louise. Madame wanted her to make an entrance and a stir when she first arrived (officially) at the House. Kat had promised she could come up with something spectacular. Tonight, or tomorrow, depending on what Fate presented in the way of opportunity, saucy and inventive Francesca of the Red Cat would vanish, and Francesca de Chevreuse, gracious and educated courtesan from Aquitaine, would appear at Casa Louise?with no way of connecting the two. Certainly her potential customers would never guess. The social strata that patronized Casa Louise wouldn't even glance down the Rio dei Mendicanti as they passed by on their way to some important social or business function.

All the rest of the new gowns, including the interview gown, were in her new apartment at Casa Louise, conveyed there by the ever-resourceful Katerina. Francesca was taking no chances on the Madame of the Red Cat sniffing out her imminent defection. A bruised and broken-boned courtesan was not an object of desire, and the doorman had heavy fists.

Kat had cleverly managed to squeeze everything into a rather small package that looked exactly like a parcel from a food-stall. "I don't suppose you'd care to come in, would you?" Francesca asked doubtfully. She was surprised by the answer.

"I would love to. I'd like?to ask your advice."

On what, I wonder? Kat knew Donatella, the same Strega herbalist who provided Francesca with the means of preventing pregnancy, so it couldn't be that, could it? Unless Kat wasn't aware that there were such things?

Ridiculous. She couldn't be making deliveries on these waters without finding out within a fortnight.

"Then by all means, please come in." Francesca gestured that Kat should follow her.

It was too early for the doorman to be on duty, and plenty of the other girls had female friends or relatives from outside the House, so Fernando paid no attention to Kat whatsoever. They reached Francesca's room in short order, and Francesca dropped the latch into place when Kat was inside.

"I hope you'll forgive me, but there's really no place to sit but the bed," Francesca said apologetically. Kat shrugged, and took a seat at the foot, looking around with curiosity.

"Ease my mind and have a look through there. I think you'll like what I found, and I want to make sure that the goldsmith gave me the right thing."

Thing. That would be the talisman. Francesca smiled; she wouldn't wonder that Kat was suspicious?it didn't look like something a goldsmith should have held in his keeping. She cut the string holding the parcel together and unfolded the dark, tabby-weave cloth.

Ah, the cloak. Kat had used the cloak she'd asked for as the wrapping, lining-side out. Inside were the dress, the undergown, the shifts, the hose, with one of the undergowns wrapped around another bundle.

"These are perfect," Francesca assured the girl. "Especially the choice of colors. Every other courtesan is going to be in blue or red; not only are these good colors for me, but they'll make me stand out immediately." She untied the shift and shook out the ornaments. "These are even better, if that's possible," she pronounced. "Whoever taught you about jewelry was a wise woman. Never choose fake anything, when for the same price you can have something genuine." She held up the sparkling strands of Murano glass beads that she would weave through her hair, then the three-tiered necklace with carved amber pendants and the matching earrings. "Can you see how much richer and substantial these look than gilt chains and faux pearls?"

"I didn't like the look of the other things I was offered," replied Kat. "I can't explain it, and no one taught me."

"Then you have very good instincts," Francesca told her, taking out the last piece, her precious amulet. It had been her mother's, and had come all the way from Aquitaine with Francesca. It was very crude?a wooden heart encased in a plain silver cage. It was also very old, and would probably get her burned on sight if one of the Sots ever got wind of it. It held a luck-spirit: not a terribly powerful one, but powerful enough to keep Francesca safe so long as she didn't do anything monumentally stupid… and quite powerful enough to keep her safe from prowling canal monsters by making her invisible to the eyes of evil creatures and black spirits.

It was also indisputably pagan. Which was why Francesca had chosen her Jewish goldsmith to hold it for her while she was in the Red Cat.

"Instincts good enough for me to do what you're doing?" came the bitter question.

Francesca clutched the amulet to her breast quite unconsciously and stared at the girl. "You can't possibly be saying you want to become a whore!" she blurted.

Kat flushed, but persisted. "You seem to be doing well enough. And if… my grandfather dies, I may have no choice."

Francesca had known from the first day she met Kat that the girl's family was in dire straits. She was fairly certain she even knew, from the rumors that swirled through Venice along with the tides, which of the old houses it was?Montescue?even though she had never made any attempt to find out. But this…

She sat down on the head of the bed, put her talisman aside, and seized Kat's hands in both of hers. "I am the exception to the general fate of women in this profession," she said bluntly. "Or, at least, I intend to be. I've had to fight and scheme my way with every step I took since I came to Venice, and if I had not had the training from early childhood, and exceptional looks, I would not be going where I am." She was not going to speak the name of Casa Louise aloud, not here. Until the moment she went out of the door in this dress, there was still danger.

"Listen to me?I'm not going to give you my life's story, but I'm going to tell you enough. My family was the equivalent of Case Vecchie?elsewhere. My father was ruined by another old house when I was fifteen; then excommunicated and executed for supposed 'treason.' My older brother was murdered within a month. My mother fled with me and a single mule-load of her belongings. She set herself up as a courtesan in another city by appearing at a very exclusive House in one of her fine gowns and letting the Madame know that she?and her daughter?were available. The Madame tested her?and myself as well. A courtesan is not a whore; if she were, no man of wealth and taste would bother with what he could have cheaper, elsewhere. Simple rutting, however luxurious the setting, is not sufficient for the price that a man pays for a cortegiana."

Kat's face flamed, but Francesca was going to give the girl the whole truth as brutally as possible. "My mother prospered until she did something unbelievably stupid. She had the opportunity to strike back at the man who had destroyed her husband and son, and she took it. She was condemned and hung as a murderess. By then however, I was?in the business. I took my accomplishments and what I could carry and the Madame kindly assisted my flight to Venice. The Madame and my mother saw to it?as the next generation in their profession?that I had every accomplishment. I read and write in four languages, I speak six. I play the lute and sing. I dance. I can converse with a learned dottore of letters on the works of the Greeks and Romans, or on the works of the poets and philosophers of our own age. I even write poetry myself?it's bad poetry, but I can write it. I know as much about politics within Italy and the wider world as most of the gentlemen of the Case Vecchie. Quite a bit more, in fact. And as for the games of the bed?well, let me just assure you that I am a notable athlete. That is what is required to be a courtesan."