The Rossetti Letter (v5) by Christi Phillips

her eyes and gasped. Above her towered a blackamoor, the darkness of his skin accentuated by the bright blue sky behind him. He had a long, lugubrious face and was dressed in a gondolier’s uniform of striped jerkin and scarlet tights.
    “Signorina,” he said, bowing low. His voice was very deep, and oddly accented. “My mistress wishes a word.”
    Alessandra sat up. Into her view walked La Celestia, resplendent in a gown of gold cloth so brilliant it was as if a second sun had come into the garden. In flagrant disregard of the sumptuary laws, she was dripping with jewels. Her throat was circled by a half dozen strands of pearls, her earlobes weighted with diamonds, her bodice studded with rubies and emeralds. Behind her stood a pert young maidservant and a boy trailing a small monkey on a leash. The monkey was outfitted in a purple silk jerkin and a tiny, tasseled cap. When he saw Alessandra, he jumped up and down and screeched, then scampered up to perch on the boy’s shoulder, chattering all the while. Alessandra was tempted to pinch herself. Surely this was the strangest dream she’d ever had.
    “Charming,” La Celestia said as she took in the garden, the lagoon, the four-story house with its pointed Moorish windows. She came closer to Alessandra and studied her face with a curious but pleased expression. “As I thought, you’re very pretty when you’re not crying.” She squinted at the sky. “Shall we go inside? The sun is ruinous to my complexion.”
    Alessandra stood up. “Of course.” She was burning with questions, but she knew it wasn’t polite to ask. She led La Celestia upstairs, to the parlor on the second floor. The room was shaded and cool, the thick damask curtains drawn against the afternoon sun. The courtesan looked over the furnishings and the wood-paneled walls with a practiced eye.
    “It’s a bit plain for such a well-situated house, but with some work it could be handsome enough,” she said. “I know some very clever artisans who could help you with the decor.”
    “Thank you, but—”
    “No Petrarch?” La Celestia asked as she inspected a row of books lining the fireplace mantel. Alessandra watched her fingers pass over the volumes: Virgil, Aristotle, Ovid, Boccaccio, Dante. “You should always have a pocket Petrarch at hand. The finest ladies always carry a copy.” She looked over at her maid. “Isabella?”
    Isabella curtsied and help up a small, beautifully bound edition of Petrarch’s poems.
    “See? I always carry one.” La Celestia looked back at the books. “Have you read all of these?”
    “Yes.”
    “Including the Latin and Greek?”
    “Yes.”
    “Hmmm…” Her expression was inscrutable. “There is such a thing as being too well educated.” She turned to the lute in the corner. “Do you play?”
    “Yes.”
    “Sing and dance?”
    “Yes…a little,” she added honestly.
    La Celestia stepped over to the best chair in the room, spread her skirt, and sat down. She nodded at Isabella and the girl silently slipped out the door, apparently heading downstairs to wait with the gondolier, the boy, and the monkey. “Your manners as a hostess could use some improvement,” the courtesan said. “Aren’t you going to offer me a refreshment?”
    “Forgive me, but I don’t understand why you’re here,” Alessandra said.
    “To discuss your plans for the future, of course. What are you going to do now that Signor Liberti is dead?”
    “You know about Lorenzo?” Alessandra was so astonished that she blurted out his Christian name.
    “Very little goes on in Venice that I don’t know about.” Apparently La Celestia took some pleasure in surprising her, for she wore a self-satisfied smile. “It took a few days, but I finally remembered where I’d seen you—at a comedia at Ca’ Pesaro that you attended with Signor Liberti. You turned no small number of heads there, though you seemed to be quite unaware of the effect you had. As you were the other day at the