3 - Cruel Music (9 page)

Ringing the bell cord at the main portico seemed to be my only option. A sleepy Guido answered. I’d concocted a tale about becoming lost on a midnight walk, but Benito’s friend handed me a better story. With a knowing smirk, Guido couldn’t resist making a joke about a eunuch stumbling home after trying his luck in the bordellos of the Trastevere.

“Ah, you caught me out. See here…” I ran my hands over my sweat-stained shirt and torn lace. “Your Roman whores are even more dangerous than our Venetian ones. The jades fought among themselves as if they couldn’t wait to bed me, but once I was at their mercy, they stole my purse and rolled me out the door without jacket or cloak.”

Guido laughed, and I saw that his looks were more remarkable than I had first thought. He had removed his cheap servant’s wig to reveal thick, almost blue black curls, and the pleasing proportions of his features were marred only by the vestiges of a fight that had once rearranged his nose. I could see why Benito was smitten.

He said, “You should have let me know what you wanted. Your man could have easily arranged it. I can supply you with a woman who won’t pilfer your pockets, one who knows some jolly tricks that might suit you most particularly.” With a leer, he added, “Like our Lord, she performs the miracle of bringing the dead to life.”

“I’ll remember that.” I nodded, forcing a smile. “Have you been on duty here all night?”

“Since ten o’clock.”

“Am I the first to disturb your rest?”

He shrugged. “The old lady got loose.”

“Oh, what time was that?”

“Halfway between eleven and midnight. I told Rossobelli about it, then I didn’t see her anymore. All in all, nothing out of the ordinary.”

Perhaps for you, I thought, but instead asked, “How did you have the bad luck to draw night porter’s duty?”

“Night duty’s a nevermind for me. After Rossobelli comes around there’s hardly anyone about, and a fellow can follow his thoughts without getting sent on a hundred errands.” A cocky grin contorted his well-shaped lips. “But old Red Chaps does give me more than my share.”

“Are you in Abate Rossobelli’s bad graces, then?”

“I think he sees it as a kind of penance.” Guido winked. “For my sins.”

Heaving a parting chuckle, I directed my weary steps toward the upper floors. By the time I reached my room and lit a lamp to examine the silver pendant, dawn was breaking over the hills of Rome.

Chapter Nine

The morning was nearly spent when I arose with a pounding headache. Refusing solid food, I sipped at a cup of warm chocolate while I dressed to go out. No unwilling service, be it disposing of a body or warbling a serenade, was going to keep me from seeing Liya.

Using my map, I found the Teatro Argentina on a busy corner at the intersection of two streets lined with churches and shuttered houses painted in muted shades of russet and ocher. In contrast to the theaters of Venice, it was of modest size and presented an unassuming face to the street. A graceful young man with bleached hair governed the stage door. He clearly saw me as an irritant in his well-oiled day. “No one here by that name,” he answered curtly when I asked for Signorina Del’Vecchio.

“But I saw her only yesterday. She told me to meet her. I had the idea that she works here.”

“Don’t know the lady.” He shrugged and moved to shut the door.

From the depths of the theater, the familiar sounds of an opera company preparing for a performance met my ears. Suddenly, Liya’s throaty laugh separated itself from the general din, and her smiling face popped over the doorkeeper’s shoulder.

“Tito, wait there. I’ll just be a minute. I need my shawl.”

The straw-haired young man swept me from head to toe with a curious glance. “If that’s who you want, why didn’t you just say so?” he muttered before slouching off.

Waiting, I massaged my temples in the gloomy alley that ran between the theater and a taller building that blocked the early afternoon sun. I couldn’t help comparing the Argentina with my theater back in Venice. If I had appeared at the San Marco stage door, colleagues and friends would have gathered round and embraced me, hustled me to the green room, broken out bottle and glasses. Old wives caution the young: Take care how you wish. I was learning that lesson on a bitter road. After the drudgery of Dresden, it had been my heartfelt wish to shun the theater for months on end. Now, I would sing a four-act opera every night rather than be subject to Cardinal Fabiani’s sinister intrigues.

When the door opened again, Liya’s apologetic smile sent those thoughts flying. “I didn’t have a chance to tell you before,” she said. “I’m Liya Pellegrina now.”

My breath hung in my throat. What fresh torment was this? “You’re married?” I stammered. “Who? How long?”

“Still leaping to conclusions, I see.” She slipped an arm under mine and started our progress to the street. “I took a new name when I left the ghetto. I feared that Papa would send someone to bring me back, and that’s the last thing I wanted. A clean break was best…or so I thought at the time.”

“I see,” I murmured in relief. “A new name for a new life. And Pellegrina—
pilgrim
—what could be more apt?”

She nodded.

I confess I stared at her profile like a boy entranced by his first fireworks display. Liya was even more beautiful than the image I had treasured in my mind these past five years. Her loose black hair made a striking frame for the exotic plane of her cheekbones, and her olive skin seemed as soft and supple as rose petals. Her eyes were the only thing that truly surprised me. Their black orbs had changed—for the better. In Venice, they’d often flamed with bonfires of resentment and frustration. Now they shone with a quiet, steady contentment. Whatever new life Liya had found seemed to suit her.

“Do you make masks and headdresses for the Argentina?” I asked.

“Yes, but I sew on the costumes as well. The boys’ gowns mainly. I’ve developed quite a knack for creating a bosom where there is none. And giving sixteen-year-olds who have no hips the swell of—” Liya broke off at my look of alarm. “Surely you’ve seen an opera here in Rome.”

“I haven’t had time—I just arrived several days ago—but I know the Church forbids women on the stage. It was the same at my conservatorio in Naples. We all had to take our turns playing the women’s parts.”

I fancy Liya had never thought of me in that light. She raised an inquiring eyebrow, but there was something more important afoot. My mysterious follower had returned and was studying the theater’s front entrance from the pavement across the street. I didn’t like the intensity of his gaze or the way he was muttering to himself.

“Liya,” I whispered, dropping my mouth to her ear. “That man over there, the tall one in the Roman hat.” She half turned. “No, don’t look at him. He was following me yesterday, when I saw you outside the Pantheon. Now he’s on my heels again. I want to shake him off, but I barely know my way around Rome. Which way should we go?”

She made a moue of concern. With eyes lowered under lush lashes, she took a quick peek, then astounded me by raising her hand in a friendly wave. The tall stranger responded in kind. Smiling, he stepped into the street, but almost immediately paused. He extended his long neck forward and back, like a goose scooping up grain. A carriage rolled by, and when it had passed, he was gone.

“That’s odd.” Liya cocked her head, trailing her fragrant hair on my sleeve. “He’ll usually risk life and limb to run across the street and tell you his troubles.”

“You know the man?”

“Of course. That’s our poor Tucci. He sang with the company here until a wealthy cardinal hired him away. Those who know music say Tucci’s voice has no equal, and I suppose he does sing admirably fine. I just know that he’s a lamb—always pleasant—never raised a fuss over his costumes like so many singers. Everyone makes a pet of him. But lately he’s gone a bit round the bend. His patron turned him out several weeks ago, and Maestro Ucellini won’t hire him back. He says it would be financial folly to engage a singer that Cardinal Fabiani has discarded. Now, poor Tucci acts like a woefully lost lamb. He’s been coming to the theater every day, bleating about his sad tale and begging for scraps of news.”

We’d been strolling as Liya recounted Tucci’s story. Now she stopped and dropped my arm. “But Tito, what makes you think Tucci is following you? You’ve just come to Rome. He couldn’t even know you…unless you’ve sung together in other cities, perhaps?”

“No, I’ve not encountered the man before.” I draped her arm over mine again and gave her an account of my business in Rome. The abbreviated version, I fear: the one that cast me in the role of goodwill ambassador rather than spy. Seeing Liya, and finding her so obviously pleased to see me, had set my good sense teetering on a precipice. I longed to carry her away to some private place, bury my face in her lap, and pour out all the terrible events of the past few days. But what did I really know of her present situation and frame of mind? I reluctantly determined that my smartest course of action would be to conceal the dire details of my trip to Rome and see what turn our renewed acquaintance would take.

She thought a moment as we strolled in the direction of the Tiber. “I’m sure Signor Tucci means you no harm. His dismissal may have left him unsettled in his humors, but the man doesn’t have a wicked bone in his body. I think he’s only curious to view the singer who supplanted him at the villa.”

“I’d be pleased to give him a closer look. His advice on how to satisfy Fabiani would be most welcome. So far, the cardinal has been less than overwhelmed by my songs. Do you know where this Tucci keeps his lodging?”

“He has rooms at Number 38, Piazza di Spagna. When he’s not pestering Maestro Ucellini to regain his old position, he entertains the children of his neighborhood with puppet operas. They’re quite charming. He’s fixed a miniature stage that he carries to a certain park on sunny afternoons. While he manipulates the strings from behind, he announces the characters and sings all their parts.”

“You’ve seen them?”

“Several times.” She hesitated, suddenly shy, then added, “I thought they would amuse…my son.”

“Ah, Luca’s child.” I hesitated as well, but not from shyness. “He must be nearing five by now. Is that what you call him? Luca?”

She gave a peculiar laugh. “I broke tradition in that way, too. He isn’t named for his father.”

She fell silent, so I prodded her. “He does have a name?”

“Oh, yes.” She fixed me with a penetrating look. “I call him Tito.”

I digested that surprising bit of information as we turned several corners and entered a noisy café. After we ordered grappa and sweet biscuits, I asked her why.

“When I went to Monteborgo, I had plenty of time to ponder a number of things. The village was amazingly quiet compared to the ghetto, and I didn’t have my mother’s constant nagging and nitpicking ringing in my ears. Monteborgo was the sanctuary I needed. By the time Tito was born, I had gradually come to see that my love for Luca was really a blindfold that kept me from seeing him as he really was.”

“Luca reeked of charm,” I said, “but his pleasing ways hid a selfish heart.”

She smiled wryly. “There was a time when I would have smacked your cheeks for saying such a thing. But you’re right, Tito, quite right.” She took a sip of grappa that left a smudge of syrupy purple over her finely chiseled lip. “That’s why I refused to name my son after a rogue. I asked myself, ‘Who is the most admirable man I know? Who possesses the sensibility and fine feelings that I would seek to bestow on my child?’”

“And you settled on me?” I asked in wonderment.

She nodded. “You were at the top of my list.”

My hand sought hers across the white tablecloth. “Liya, why did you not return to Venice? The last time we met, I made my feelings abundantly clear.”

“I did come back. Several years ago…”

“But your family never said.”

“You see them?”

“Often—when I’m home.” I shrugged. My voice became husky. “They are my only link to you.”

She clenched my hand and pulled herself up very straight. “Did they sit shiva for me?”

I shook my head. “In this, your father has been adamant. He refuses to go into mourning because he believes you will return someday.”

“How are they?” Her black eyes shone, but if they held tears, they did not wet her cheeks.

“Your mother and father are well. Your grandmother still sits by the stove, pretending to do needlework but really keeping an eye on everyone’s activities.”

Liya smiled a little, so I went on, “Mara and Sara married men of the ghetto, and Fortunata has become quite the little lady. She helps your father in the shop.”

“Then Papa must be happy.” Liya sighed. “Fortunata was always his favorite.”

I thought Pincas would be happier if his eldest daughter would pay him a visit with the grandson he had never seen, but I didn’t say so. Instead, I asked, “You didn’t see them at all?”

“No. I was in Venice only a short time. I went to the theater to look for you, only to find you’d gone to England for an extended engagement at the opera house in Covent Garden.” She dropped her gaze. “And that you were traveling in the company of a certain lady.”

I groaned. “What wretched luck. I returned from London almost immediately. The vile taste of that gloomy town has turned against Italian singers, and there’s no point in staying where you’re not wanted.” I leaned across the tablecloth. “More importantly, the lady you heard about was a miserable mistake. She lasted no longer than my London engagement.”

Liya sent me an enigmatic smile. “Our luck appears to have changed for the good. We have found each other once again. In Rome, of all places.”

I returned her smile. “Have you left Monteborgo behind for good, then?”

“I’ve left the village, but not its ways.”

“You’re still a devotee of the old religion?” I asked, lowering my voice to a whisper. Even the mention of the streghe made me itch to look over my shoulder to see who might be listening.

It was her turn to nod. She took another sip of grappa before answering, “There are more of us than you might think. Not all in remote villages.”

“Wise women?”

“Not just women. Many men follow the old path along with us.”

I opened my mouth to ask another question, but she silenced me with a shake of her head. “If you care to listen, I have marvelous things to tell you. But here is not the place.”

She was right. The placement of the café tables allowed only enough space for the waiters to squeeze through with their trays balanced high on one hand. We were closely surrounded by black-clad abati, all sipping coffee and offering conflicting rumors about the state of Pope Clement’s health: he had rallied and appeared on a balcony of the Quirinal—no, he was sinking and had lost the power of speech—no, he was raving night and day like a madman.

Summoning a waiter, I said to Liya, “I do have something I’d like to show you. It’s a strange relic—you may be able to enlighten me about its meaning. Shall we walk?”

“Yes, of course.” Liya pulled her shawl over her shoulders. “But back toward the theater. A new opera opens tonight—the first performance since before Christmas. I’ve been gone too long already.”

I nodded, suddenly aware that my headache seemed to have entirely disappeared, then answered, “I saw the playbill—
Ricimero
by Jommelli. I’d like to see what that Neapolitan butterball has come up with. When I left Naples, Jommelli was full of boasts but had yet to make his mark.”

“You must come. Maestro Ucellini expects a twenty day run.”

“Whether or not I see
Ricimero
depends on Cardinal Fabiani.”

“He will see it several times, I’m sure. The cardinal keeps a fine box, overlooking the stage from the third tier.”

“But will he bring his caged nightingale along?” I was unable to keep the bitterness from my tone.

She tossed her black curls. “Tito, why have you shackled yourself to Fabiani? As I recall, you always valued your liberty to make your own arrangements. Does having a Venetian as pope really matter so much?”

I took a deep sigh. “That’s another thing we must save for later discussion.” Digging into my waistcoat pocket, I clasped the pendant I had found at the entrance to the garden pavilion. I paused on the pavement to transfer it to Liya’s palm. “Here, tell me what you can about this.”

While I pretended to admire the feathery creations in a milliner’s window, Liya studied the intricately worked silver. “It’s called a
cimaruta
. Many followers of the old religion keep one as an amulet, either sewn into a hidden pocket or on a chain under a shirt. Where did you get it, Tito?”