Auria motioned to one of the other women, who had been mixing something in a small pot. “Let me see.” The pot of stuff was brought over for inspection. “More saffron,” she said determinedly. “It’s not like we can sit him in the sun until it bleaches properly.” Bright blue eyes narrowed on him. “And what about those teeth?”
The blond put a hand up to cover his discolored front teeth, only to have it smacked again. “We’ve already tried tooth powder—twice,” one of the attendants told her. “But it’s not a stain; the teeth must have been going bad when he was Changed, and now the color’s fixed. We can try again, but—”
“Enamel them,” Auria said firmly.
“Why not use a glamourie?” Mircea asked again. He was currently having his hair trimmed, to bring it to the correct, slightly-below-shoulder-length style that suited current Venetian tastes. But Marte was already eyeing him as she denuded poor Bezio, whose watery eyes were making clear how much he was enjoying the process.
“Because we have two types of clients,” Marte told him, ripping off another strip of hair. “The first is easy. Wealthy merchants or visiting pilgrims who come to us for a taste of the exotic. Or, sometimes, for cavaliers to help them entertain their wives, who are often decades younger.”
Jerome frowned. “You . . . you mean, they want us to . . .”
“They prefer to know who their wives are with,” Auria said briskly. “Wouldn’t you?”
“No!”
“You’re thinking of love matches. These aren’t,” Marte told him kindly.
Auria agreed. “Most of the men are as bored with the wives they married for money or family alliances as the wives are with them. They’re happy to find lovers to keep the little minxes out of trouble, rather than have them come up with their own—and in the process possibly ruin the family name.”
Marte nodded. “Better to choose someone for them, someone discreet, someone professional, who can be paid to go away if the relationship becomes a problem. Or who can help persuade the wives of something the husbands wish them to do.”
“Danieli managed to convince one she didn’t want a summer home in Este just the other day,” Auria added. “Winning himself a sizeable reward from the grateful husband. He hasn’t stopped crowing about it yet.”
“Of course, you need training for that sort of thing. And for how to squire the young women about town, and how to dance properly, and how to bow—”
“Bow?” Jerome looked lost.
“Oh, yes! It’s an art, really: how deeply and for which person and on what occasion—”
“And the newly rich never get it right,” Auria laughed. “Some of our gentlemen callers actually end up paying more for lessons than they do for companionship!”
“Paulo’s a bowing master,” Marte nodded. “He has a number of young men who come to him for instruction.”
“In how to bow,” Jerome said, as if he still didn’t believe it.
“Yes, and you’ll have to learn, too,” Auria told him. “You’ll be expected to accompany ladies to social events and not embarrass them—or us! And to shop for them in the Rialto, and to bargain for them with merchants . . .”
“I understand that some things have to be learned,” Mircea said, as Marte finished torturing Bezio’s chest. “But we were talking about looks, and a glamourie would surely be—”
“Too expensive,” Auria said decisively. “Illusion can smooth out small problems, yes, but the more a face or figure must be altered, the more costly it is. Particularly on an ongoing basis. Not to mention—”
But Mircea didn’t get to hear the rest of her comment, because Marte had just slapped Bezio’s thigh. “Good job. Now drop the towel and bend over.”
“What?” Bezio looked understandably confused. And then scandalized, as her meaning set in. He started backing away when she reached for his towel.
“It’s no good,” she told him, following. “You can’t go about like that.”
“Like what?”
“With thighs that hairy, there’s no way it doesn’t extend all the way up.” She motioned for a couple of male attendants when Bezio dodged another grab for his towel.
“It doesn’t!” he declared, clutching it in a panic.
“Then show me.”
“No! No, damn it! Get away from me!”
“You can’t be a proper courtesan with a hairy bum,” Marte grinned, as the attendants fanned out, blocking his only avenue of escape.
“Then I’ll be an improper one!”
“At least you get to stay mostly natural in front,” she wheedled. “We women are expected to lose it all, or be considered as common as a market girl.”
“Yes, but . . . but that’s not the same thing!”
“How so?”
“You’re women.”
Mircea winced, and Marte’s eyes narrowed. “And?”
“And I won’t be made to look like a woman!”
Auria snorted, looking over his muscular, stocky frame. “No chance there.”
“Women, men—it doesn’t matter now,” Marte told him. “You’re a vampire. The only thing that matters is power.” The smile returned as the attendants pounced. “Or lack of it.”
A lot of yelling, thumping, and cursing followed, none of which daunted a determined Marte and her little spatula. Mircea looked away in deference to his companion’s discomfort. And met Auria’s smirking face instead.
“Not to mention?” he prompted.
“As Marte said, we have two types of clients,” she told him. “For humans, glamouries are fine, if expensive. But most vampires won’t permit them, not even for minor imperfections.”
Marte nodded, setting her earrings to chiming as she slathered up poor Bezio. “Too many times, some assassin has hidden under a glamourie, and then when they have someone in a vulnerable position . . .” She drew a pretend line across her neck, and then promptly ruined it by laughing at Mircea’s expression. “It doesn’t happen anymore,” she told him.
“It would if anyone thought they could get away with it,” Auria said. “But the vamps around here are too careful for that, these days. They want to know who they’re getting. And that means no glamouries.”
“Then what about Sanuito?” Jerome asked. “Without a glamourie . . .” He didn’t finish the thought, but the point was made. Between the heavily pockmarked skin and the buckteeth and the unprepossessing features, only a glamourie could help Sanuito.
“Oh, him.” Auria looked up from mixing something in a bowl to roll her eyes.
“The mistress is going to use him as her assistant,” Marte said, more charitably.
“Her assistant . . . for what?” Jerome asked, looking faintly envious.
Marte laughed. “Cosmetic making, silly! She makes most of the ones we use here.”
“She has terribly dry skin,” Auria added, with some satisfaction. “None of the stuff in the shops worked for her.”
“So she decided to make her own, and now it’s branched out into all sorts of things,” Marte enthused.
“Luckily,” Auria said dryly. “Paulo would have a fit if we had to buy all the stuff we use.”
“Why would Paulo care?” Mircea asked, eyeing Auria, who had finished her concoction and was now approaching.
“He’s Martina’s spenditore. He keeps the accounts around here,” she told him. “And tries to keep us in the black.”
“Like that ever works!” Marte laughed, doing something that made Bezio howl.
“She’ll keep Sanuito busy,” Auria added, slathering some of her noxious brew onto a long strip of cloth.
“But doesn’t that sort of thing take a long time to learn?” Jerome asked, looking envious. Maybe because Sanuito had just gotten a pass out of the rose-scented torture chamber.
“Not all of it. He was grinding some mother-of-pearl for eye shadow last time I saw him. But he won’t make much doing that.”