reliable and humble servant?’
The cook beamed.
‘Oh, Gio, would you look after him? I worry about him, he’s very clever but hasn’t the sense of a newly born mouse.’
Giovanni ‘Baci baci’ di Ca’ Nuova felt like a hypocrite when he accepted the cook’s hug and agreed to look after Lorenzo.
Then again, he intended to look after him.
From his family home in the Calle di Turchetta, a spruce and combed Giovanni set forth at the appointed time. Eight of the clock on a cold, damp winter’s night. Giovanni was not cold. He had chosen a Zanni, with jester’s hat, as his mask. It made him ugly, but it left his mouth free to eat and drink - and to kiss, should it come to that, St Lucy willing, though as a virgin martyr Gio wasn’t so sure that he ought to be praying to her for this favour. He switched his prayers to Peter. Peter was a fisherman. He’d understand.
The cloaked figure was waiting at the watergate. It stepped into the gondola easily, which made Giovanni frown. He leaned forward to adjust the leather covering, and pressed a delicate kiss to the mouth just visible under the grotesque mask. Then he said softly ‘Who are you, and where is your master?’
‘I’m Lorenzo di Bianchi,’ protested the man.
‘No, you’re not,’ said Gio. ‘Tell me, I might be able to help.’
‘Luisa della Cucina likes you,’ sighed the man. ‘All right. I’m Cosimo, his valet. His mother made him promise to go out. He doesn’t want to, so I said I’d go in his place.’
‘And what will you give me if I don’t tell La Signora about this?’ bargained Giovanni.
‘Anything, please,’ begged Cosimo. ‘He’s scared to go outside. He sweats and shakes. Just take me around a bit, let me be seen at various places, and then bring me home.’
‘If I do that,’ said Gio, ‘I want an interview with Lorenzo Di Bianchi, alone. Tonight.’
‘All right,' gasped Cosimo, and kissed him back. Well, that answered that question. Cosimo was not Lorenzo’s lover. He tasted far too strongly of garlic.
‘St Mark’s,’ agreed, Gio, and stepped back to his rowing platform. He had to pay attention. The wide waterway was jammed with gondolas. Various friends rowed past, each grinning as they saw someone who was expected to be Lorenzo di Bianchi in his vessel. They had more faith in his skills than Gio had, at present. Too afraid to go outside? Was it even proper to seduce a madman? Cosimo would suffer no injury if he seduced him. But Lorenzo?
Gio worried at the problem as he rowed the spurious Lorenzo to St Marks, where he danced amongst the brightly dressed, and then to a couple of private parties, where his Plague Doctor’s mask made it impossible for him to talk clearly, and then, after three hours, home to the Ca‘ D’Oro.
Gio slid the gondola into the mooring in front of the watergate, deposited Cosimo, then took it away to an unobtrusive, common place to tie up. He stepped lightly back to the door, where Cosimo still waited.
Then Cosimo, displaying more intelligence than Gio had expected, flung his cloaked arm around the gondolier and brought him into the house, shutting the door behind them, a signal for any watcher that the carnevale celebrator had found his friend for the night. And would not want to be disturbed.
They raided the platters of festival delights left out in the kitchen, gobbled quite a lot of them, and carried some with them.
They climbed a lot of stairs in the half dark until they reached Lorenzo’s rooms.
‘I’ll be next door,’ whispered Cosimo. ‘If he doesn’t want you, come to me?’
‘Deal,’ agreed Giovanni, and opened the door.
The pale young man was reading by the light of a shielded candle. Gio appreciated that it could not be seen from the canale grande, as the owner was supposed to be out enjoying the carnival. He looked up when Gio came in and put his plate of rose and honey pannacotta, fritelle di mela alla vaniglia and cannoli on the table, pushing aside several heavy books.
‘Happy carnival!’ he said. The young man shut the book with a thump.
‘Was Cosimo caught?’ he asked tensely.
‘Only by me, and I helped him with his charade. Come, try these vanilla fritelle, they are very good.’
‘Why would you do that?’ asked Lorenzo di Bianchi, fingers irresistibly attracted to the sweet cakes.
‘Because I hope to seduce you,’ said Gio, smiling his best smile.
‘Your hope is vain,’ said Lorenzo, ‘and you have lost your wager. How much will you lose?’
‘Fifty escudos,’ replied Gio.
‘Which you don’t have,’ the young man continued.
‘True again,’ confessed Gio.
‘What made you make such a wager?’ asked Lorenzo, noting that Gio was standing between him and the platter of cakes.
‘I saw you in the window every time I went past. You are beautiful, with your beechnut hair and your sad eyes and your red mouth. And generally I can charm a kiss from anyone. Then I discovered that - you are not able to come out of the house. Which made me feel bad about my plans. It is not proper to seduce ... one whose mind is afflicted. That isn’t in the game. Just like children or nuns. So the bet is off,’ said Gio, ‘and so am I.’
‘Wait,’ said Lorenzo. ‘How did you find Cosimo out? You couldn’t see his face and he’s the same height as I am, wearing my clothes and my mask.’
‘The mask didn’t fit exactly, they are moulded specially to the face. He stepped far too gracefully into my gondola for someone who rarely goes outside. And he smelt of garlic, which Luisa della Cucina says you can’t stand.’
‘That was very clever,’ murmured Lorenzo.
‘At your service,’ said Giovanni, made a magnificent bow, and was caught at the door by Lorenzo’s arms slipping around his waist and clasping him close.
‘You could, of course, win your bet,’ murmured Lorenzo.
‘At,’ gasped Gio, between kisses ‘your,’ kiss again, ‘service.’
Two hours later they were naked, sated for the moment, sitting up in Lorenzo’s magnificent bed, eating fritelle and licking the spilled honey off all available skin. And Giovanni ‘baci baci’ Di Ca’ Nuova, irresistible seducer of all mankind, had fallen completely and hopelessly in love. Lorenzo di Bianchi had to review all that his philosophers had said of love, which he had previously thought overdrawn and now seemed scarcely adequate to describe how he felt.
No one particularly noticed that every day ever after Giovanni ended his day’s work not by returning to the overpeopled house in the Calle Di Turchette but by making his way up the secret staircase of the Ca’ D’Oro, there to make love for as long as Cosimo could keep the door. Lorenzo pined for him when he was gone, and Gio came back as often as he could.
Then Savanarola arrived in Venice, and Bonfires of the Vanities were made, and the canals and streets were full of fears and denunciations. Giovanni’s family had connections in Tuscany. Letters to the Toscana went back and forth. Other connections in Naples were contacted. Gondoliers were not people who intended to see their life’s work burn because some renegade priest thought that their boats were pagan. Before Holy Week began, the boats were gradually taken away to be hidden on various islands and gondolas began to be less in evidence. Many citizens of the Serenissima were inconvenienced. In the gondolier’s view, this was only right and proper for their entertaining of such idiotic views.
Giovanni was returning from a trip out to the Lido when his brother caught at his sternpost and yelled, ‘Your boy is denounced, get him out to Uncle Teodoro right away!’ and Giovanni rowed for the Ca’ D’Oro as though he was competing in the regatta. He