After passing a series of rooms the servants called ‘The Eyes’, on account of the large, round windows that gazed impassively out over the city, we arrived at a locked door. Beyond it was an unused passage, the tiled floor so thick with dust that we left footprints, almost as if we were walking on snow. We started up a steep flight of stairs. I made sure that the servants kept the packing case horizontal, one holding his end above his head while the other walked backwards, bending low, his hands down near his feet. We came out into a modest, unfurnished apartment. One half-open door gave on to a strange, empty space that had a rough grey convex floor, and I realized we must be above the flamboyant rooms with vaulted ceilings where the Grand Duke held court. Covert and neglected, the apartment felt like the kind of place where I would meet Faustina. I sneezed twice. Here, too, the floors were voluptuous with dust.
At last, we reached the chamber mentioned in the note. I unlocked the door, and we passed into a circular, domed room. The walls were painted duck-egg blue, and the floor was a vanilla marble, veined with brown and grey. The only windows were narrow and high up, where the dome gathered to a nipple. An oak table stood in the middle of the room. Nearby were two chairs, their gilt arms shaped like lions’ paws. The servants looked at me, waiting for instructions.
‘On the table, please,’ I said.
Once they had gone, their voices fading in the corridor — a murmur, a stifled laugh — I lifted the sliding panel. Slowly, carefully, I eased the shrouded girl from her container. I removed the hessian, but left the final layer of muslin draped over her naked body like a veil. It was late afternoon. The Grand Duke was due at any moment. Sitting down, I fell into a kind of reverie. I was outdoors, on a smooth, green hill. I couldn’t tell what country I was in. England, perhaps. There were wild animals nearby, but I didn’t feel in any danger. The air was warm, the ground soft and yet resilient. To be alive was such a blessing, such a –
‘Zummo?’
Dazed, I sprang out of the chair. The Grand Duke was standing by the door. He wore a cream-coloured wig and scarlet clothes, the fabric glittering with gem-stones and trimmed with little clouds of fur. He must have come straight from an important engagement. I apologized for having dozed off.
‘You work harder than any of us,’ he said. ‘You put us to shame.’
‘I doubt that very much, Your Highness.’
He was weary too, he told me. He had spent most of the afternoon with an Austrian diplomat, one of Leopold I’s advisers, who was intent on involving him in a political manoeuvre that didn’t interest him in the slightest.
‘But let us put all that aside.’ Sinking down on to a chair, the Grand Duke eyed me from beneath his heavy lids.
I took hold of the muslin and pulled it in such a way that the girl was gradually revealed. The Grand Duke’s plump lips parted, and he gripped the arms of his chair as if frightened he might be swept away. His knuckles had whitened over the lions’ paws. Not wanting to break the spell, I stood quite still.
Finally, the Grand Duke rose to his feet. He advanced on the reclining figure cautiously, on tiptoe. She appeared to have made a child of him. He stopped beside her, one hand wrapped around his mouth and chin.
‘But this is perfect,’ he murmured.
Only then, as the air rushed out of me, did I realize I had been holding my breath. I hadn’t betrayed him or embarrassed him. I wouldn’t be required to defend myself.
‘This is better than I could ever have expected.’ He turned away, and the look he gave me when he reached the far side of the room could almost have been mistaken for pity. ‘You’re a master.’
‘For weeks, Your Highness,’ I said, ‘I worked on nothing but the colour of her skin.’
‘I can imagine.’
I had used a wide range of pigments, I told him, some organic, some man-made. I had used lead-white for her face. Gold-leaf too. And champagne chalk from Northern France. I had used smalt and malachite for her armpits, dragon’s blood and fustic for her thighs.
‘But the texture was no less important,’ I went on.
I had experimented with Turkish wax, which had a vivid orange-red colour to it, and wax from Madagascar, which was sandy brown and alluringly aromatic. I had imported wax from Senegal, but it smelled so pungent that I found myself recoiling. I had even worked with wax extracted from cabbages and plums. I had adulterated my waxes with fine resins, animal fats, kaolin, ochre, marble dust, and tallow. After hundreds of hours of trial and error, I had produced a wax the like of which had never been seen before, a wax both tactile and resilient, a wax as fleshy as flesh itself.
The Grand Duke was nodding. ‘She looks so real. If she were to sit up, or turn over, or even speak, somehow I wouldn’t be surprised.’ He laughed in disbelief at what he was saying, then seemed to shiver. Was he after all aware of a transgression of some kind? ‘Remind me how long this has taken.’
‘More than a year.’
‘It was worth the wait.’
I thanked him.
‘One thing.’ With a thoughtful expression, he moved back towards the girl. He seemed bolder suddenly, and more complacent, as if in the brief moments he had spent on the far side of the room he had become accustomed to her existence. As if, by removing himself, he had taken ownership. The speed of the transition startled me, but perhaps it illustrated his sense of prerogative. As the Grand Duke, he was used to receiving extraordinary gifts. I watched as he traced the dip in the muscle of her upper arm, the slow curve of her jaw. ‘Could you give her some hair?’
‘She already has hair,’ I said. Then, feeling foolish, I added, ‘On her head.’
‘But not,’ he said, ‘elsewhere …’
I found myself staring, but he was gazing up at the domed ceiling.
‘I used to play in here when I was young,’ he said. ‘I would hide from Bandinelli.’
‘He was your tutor, wasn’t he?’
‘My mother likes to say he was the one who made me what I am.’ The Grand Duke smiled bleakly, then looked beyond me, at the girl, and in a different voice, one that was far more practical, he said, ‘It should be real hair, from a woman.’
‘Of course.’ I hesitated. ‘But otherwise you’re satisfied?’
‘Satisfied? I’m astonished. Overwhelmed.’
His voice was trembling, and tears had welled into his eyes. It was my turn to look away.
I promised to make the necessary modifications as soon as I could.
The Grand Duke nodded. ‘I’ll see that you’re handsomely rewarded.’
I murmured that his approval was all the reward I needed, then I bowed and left the room.
I opened Faustina’s bedroom shutters a few inches to let some cool air in. The afternoon sun fell through the gap and lay on the floor like a thin, bright strip of brass. I wouldn’t normally have risked visiting Faustina in the daytime, but her uncle had travelled to Livorno to receive a shipment of spices from the south of Spain. Also, since I had successfully delivered the Grand Duke’s secret commission, I had begun to feel more confident. There was no reason, I thought, why his good will might not extend to cover every aspect of my life, including my unorthodox relationship with Faustina. Before too long, we might have privileged status, if not actual immunity. Though everything was forbidden in Florence, anything was possible.
I turned from the window and sat down on the edge of the bed. She was lying on her back with nothing on, the linen damp and crumpled.