In the Company of the Courtesan: A Novel by Sarah Dunant

Author:Sarah Dunant [Dunant, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780812974041
Amazon: 0812974042
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Published: 2007-02-05T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Venice, mid-1530s

On Thursday, my lady takes no visitors, for she is busy about her beauty. She rises at first light, and with the help of her maid, Gabriella, sets about washing her hair. After the first soaping, Gabriella massages her scalp for half an hour with a cedar paste to encourage new growth and then rinses it twice in waters made from boiled vine stock with barley straw and crushed licorice root to bring out the highlights and make it shine. It is grown to her waist again now, and while it has never quite regained its first glorious weight, it is fine enough for those who did not know her then, and the color still runs rich with seams of honey and gold, which light up as it dries, resting like a cloak over the edge of a high chair where she sits with her back to the morning sun. She uses the hours it takes to dry to have Gabriella pluck her hairline so that her forehead is high and clear. Around midmorning La Draga arrives with a series of freshly made ointments, including a special bleaching paste that she herself applies to my lady’s face and neck and shoulders. I asked her once about its ingredients, and she told me it includes bean flour, mercury, dove entrails, camphor, and egg white, but in what proportions and with what other refinements I have no idea, since she keeps such information as guarded as any state secret. Whatever is left over from the paste, I keep the pot in my room in case of substitution or theft, for you would be amazed by the espionage of beauty among the courtesan community. (For a woman with no eyes, La Draga has proved herself a veritable miracle worker in the business of beauty, so that no one—least of all myself—can begrudge her a regular place in our household now.)

When the mask is removed—an hour and half is too short, and two hours too long—my lady’s skin is red and sometimes even blotchy, and Gabriella soothes it with cucumber water and warm towels. She spends the early afternoon seeing her dressmaker, practicing the lute, and memorizing some verses. To cleanse her stomach, she drinks only vinegared water prepared by the cook, and before her afternoon sleep she brushes a thicker bleaching paste with rosemary onto her teeth, rubs her gums with mint, and treats her eyes with drops of witch hazel water to moisten and highlight the whites. She is woken at eight, has Gabriella dress and set her hair, and lightly powders her skin, which is now white and smooth as unveined marble, and thus she steps out into the world ready for the night.

In the Arsenale, where no visiting is allowed but about which there are countless stories, there is apparently a great canal bounded by storehouses on either side and manned by hundreds of workers. When a ship is to be launched, it moves slowly along this wet

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