The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant Read Free Book Online Page B

to Maurizio’s house, where it would enter his bedchamber, find an exposed limb, and pierce deep into his skin, whereupon the blood of the two lovers would instantly be mingled. The power of the idea was almost unbearable, even if it was only the lumpen likes of Plautilla and Maurizio. But then if such a thing were possible—and having made a study of mosquitoes, it seemed to me it must be: I mean, what could that be but our blood? When you killed them at the beginning of the night their bodies were just black smears, yet later they splatted the reddest of red juice—if such a thing were possible then surely it might also be capriciously done. There were a thousand windows in the city. How many ill-suited gouty old men had already mingled their blood with mine? I wondered. It made me think again that if I were going to have to have a husband, I would want one that would come to me, not with a fine leg and pearls on his brocade but in the shape of a swan, wild wings beating like a storm cloud, as in Zeus and Leda. And that if he did that I might indeed love him forever. Though only if he would let me draw him afterward.
    As so often happened on such nights, the activity of my thoughts drove me further awake until eventually I slid out from under the sheets and made my way out of the bedroom.
    I love our house in the dark. There is so much blackness and its internal geography is so complex that I have learned to measure it out in my mind, knowing where to find the doors and which angles of turn are necessary to avoid intrusive bits of furniture or unexpected stairs. Sometimes as I glide from room to room, I imagine I am out in the city itself, its alleyways and corners unfolding like an elegant mathematical solution in my mind. Despite my mother’s suspicions, I have never walked the city alone. Of course there have been moments when I have escaped the clutches of a chaperone to move down a side street or loiter at a market stall, but never for long and always in daylight. Our few evening excursions for festivals or late mass showed a place still wide awake. How its atmosphere might change when the torches went out I had no idea. Erila was a slave, and yet she knew more of my city than I ever will. I had as much chance to travel the Orient as I did streets alone at night. But I could dream.
    Below me the main courtyard was a well of darkness. I made my way down the stairs. One of the house dogs raised a sleepy eye as I passed him, but he was long used to my nocturnal wanderings. My mother’s peacocks in the garden were more to be feared. Not only had they sharper hearing but their shrieks were like a chorus of souls in hell. Wake them and you woke everyone.
    I pushed open the door into the winter receiving room. The tiles were polished and smooth under my feet. The new tapestry hung like a heavy shadow and the great oak table, my mother’s pride and joy, was laid for ghosts. I curled myself onto the stone windowsill and slipped the catch carefully. From here the house looked out over the street and I could sit and watch the nightlife. The torches in their great iron baskets on the wall illuminated the front of the house. It was a sign of the new wealth of the neighborhood that there were households rich enough to light latecomers home. I had heard stories of how on moonless nights in the poorer parts of town people died from falling down pits in the cobbles, or drowned in overflowing gutters. Though their blindness was probably made worse by the wine.
    No doubt my brothers’ sight would be similarly impaired by now. What they lacked in vision they make up for in noise, their drunken laughter hitting the cobbles and bouncing in exaggerated echo up to the windows above. Sometimes the racket woke my father. But there was no such excitement tonight and my eyelids were beginning to droop when I noticed something down below.
    From the side of our house a figure emerged into the main street, his body briefly illuminated in the