Page 201 - The Grotesque Children's Book

Chapter 19.

Six lashes and four knuckles

Carola examined the locket once she was able to get home to her rooms and make sure
she was alone. The Duchess would absolutely have me executed on the spot for stealing her
jewelry. No, not on the spot. She'd have me paraded first, made a public humiliation and an
example for all would-be thieves. Certain and symbolic death before the populace. What
diabolical things would she do to me? Flogging? The stocks! Oh, how awful. I wouldn't
survive more than an hour in the stocks. Would she cut off my thumbs, then my fingers, then my
hands and toes, and toss them to the blood-mad crowd? Over a single piece of jewelry! She
must have boxes and boxes and rooms and rooms of trinkets and bracelets and earrings and
baubles and rings and necklaces and, and, other shiny things the names of which are known only
by the power-crazed rich. And, my Lady, it's not as if I'm stealing it; I'll return it tomorrow. I
just want to see what secret you have hidden inside, that's all, and then I'll give it back. Would
you flog me and have my thumbs just for that? Just for an evening? That's a very high rental
price if you ask me, my Lady. Two thumbs, eight fingers and forty lashes just for me to borrow
it for a mere, what, sixteen or eighteen hours? What would it be to borrow it just for a four-hour
afternoon -- six lashes and four knuckles? That might be worth it! Just to see what's inside!

In this, as we know, Carola was correct. The Duchess would indeed execute her the very
afternoon it was discovered she had stolen jewels. You're a wicked, spiteful paranoid woman,
Lady Bianca. You are unfeeling and monstrous. You are greedy and covetous and would just as
soon ruin a thousand peasants' lives in order to possess one additional broach! You are
frightening and undeserving. You have no idea what it's like to do a single day's work or serve a
drink or sweep a floor. You have no idea how much this locket would change my life forever.

In this, as we know, Carola was incorrect. Bianca knew exactly what it was like to do a
single day’s work; precisely that. Bianca knew how much a locket could change a tavern girl's
life. But we, who are on the outside of the aristocracy, looking in, we often attribute
monstrosities to the rich where none exist. Perhaps the judgment is reciprocal.

Carola knew she shouldn't have stolen the locket, but pacified herself by trying to
convince herself that it wasn't greed which had caused her to risk taking it; she was driven by
curiosity and curiosity alone. Why would the Duchess wear a locket on her head? Carola's
initial instinct, you recall, had been that she would find inside the locket a portrait of some illicit
lover. How ironic would that be, thought Carola, the Duke's whore wife cheating on him
without an illicit whore lover? How fun would that be to know! She would keep that secret with
her to her grave. Unless someone offered her twenty florins for it. You recall that Carola had
not had a chance to get a close look at the locket during her sessions with the royal portraitist,
Alessandro Allori, because the Duchess's ladies in waiting handled all the jewelry, without
allowing anyone to touch it.

201