Authors: Mary Gentle
The Black Opera (106 page)
L
uigi Esposito left the drawing-room of the apartments in the
Palazzo dei Normanni
, letting the doors fall shut behind him.
A man, and a woman in man's clothing, hastily stumbled back from where they clustered outside.
“I couldn't hear anything!”
“What did they sayâ?”
“SST!”
Luigi beckoned them down the corridor towards the palace apartment's large central hall, and a rising babble of sound, where his Majesty King Ferdinand and a growing number of society's great and good collected, taking drinks from the servants, and waiting to greet their hosts.
Luigi made introductions between his three wives and Tullio Rossiâthey amiably gossiped with himâand to Paolo Scalese, whose evening dress fooled two out of the three women.
The string quartet in the corner came to a subtle, quiet halt.
Flunkies flung back the double doors.
“Your Majesty!” the apartment's major-domo announced. “Lords, Counts, ladies, gentlemen! I present to youâthe new Governor of Naples!”
King Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies clapped his hands. “Bravo!”
Every man and woman present joined in the applause, polite at first, and then, as their hosts appeared, sincere.
“Bravo!”
“Brava!”
“Bravissima!”
All three of them came in together, the penniless Count leaning on his stout padded crutches; Conrad and Leonora close enough to either side to support him if he slipped.
Roberto smiled as if a touch stunnedâand Conrad as if he heard glorious applause for the production of some Neapolitan opera.
Leonora moved to the centre, her left arm tightly through Conrad's, and her right arm linked as firmly with Roberto Conte di Argente. She might have been only beautiful, in a plain high-waisted white dress, with antique bronze earrings and hair ornaments, but neither the silk nor the metal shone as brightly as her smile.
Luigi discretely passed wine-glasses to Tullio and Paolo-Isaura.
He filled them, and his own, with the Vercel
jaune
.
Wordlessly, they raised glasses to each other:
Ting! Ting! Ting!
Â
(Please note that rough modern equivalents have been used for early-nineteenth-century swearwords; it would take more of a linguist than I am to accurately portray Neapolitan, Sicilian, and other pre-Unification Italian of the period.)
cazzo
âas a noun: penis, cock. As a colloquial interjection, used more as the UK currently uses “fuck!”; the all-purpose transgressive exclamation.
che cazzo
âlit. “what penis”; colloquially “what the fuck!”
che stronzo
âlit. “that asshole”/“what an asshole.”
Ciel; “O ciel!
”âlit. “heavens!” or “sky!” an archaic appeal to the deity.
cornuto
â“horned,” i.e. cuckolded; a husband sexually betrayed by his wife.
Dio!â“God!” (As appeal, imprecation, or whatever else this all-purpose oath can cover.)
fessa
âlit. “cleft,” colloquially “cunt.”
figlio di puttana
â“son of a whore,” used similarly to “sonofabitch!”
merda
âshit; crap.
merda per merda
â“shit, shit,
shit!”
minchia
âsouthern Italian version of
cazzo
: penis.
porca miseria
âlit. “pig poverty” or “miserable pig”; colloquial equiv. “goddammit!”
porca vacca
âlit. “pig-cow.”
porco giuda
âlit. “Judas pig” (No, I don't know why adding “pig” to almost anything can turn it into a swear-word; pigs are truly inoffensive animalsâ¦)
testa di cazzo
âdickhead.
vaffanculo
âmuch stronger version of “fuck off!” implies “go fuck yourself,” “go do it up the arse.”
N.B.:
ScheiÃe
or
Scheisse
is, of course, not Italian but German; it translates as “shit,” with much the same vulgar connotations as the English word.
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Nyx had already been to hell. One prayer more or less wouldn't make any differenceâ¦
On a ravaged, contaminated world, a centuries-old holy war rages, fought by a bloody mix of mercenaries, magicians, and conscripted soldiers. Though the origins of the war are shady and complex, there's one thing everybody agrees onâ
There's not a chance in hell of ending it.
Nyx is a former government assassin who makes a living cutting off heads for cash. But when a dubious deal between her government and an alien gene pirate goes bad, Nyx's ugly past makes her the top pick for a covert recovery. The head they want her to bring home could end the warâbut at what price?
The world is about to find out.
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1864.
London is a city in transition. The Constantine Afflictionâa strange malady that kills some of its victims and physically transforms others into the opposite sexâhas spread scandal and upheaval throughout society. Scientific marvels and disasters, such as clockwork courtesans, the alchemical fires of Whitechapel, electric carriages, and acidic monsters lurking in the Thames, have forever altered the face of the city.
Pembroke “Pimm” Halliday is an aristocrat with an interest in criminology, who uses his keen powers of observation to assist the police or private individualsâat least when he's sober enough to do so. Ellie Skyler, who hides her gender behind the byline “E. Skye,” is an intrepid journalist driven by both passion and necessity to uncover the truth, no matter where it hides.
When Pimm and Skye stumble onto a dark plot that links the city's most notorious criminal overlord with the Queen's new consort, famed scientist Sir Bertram Oswald, they soon find the forces of both high and low society arrayed against them. Can they save the city from the arcane machinations of one of history's most infamous monstersâand uncover the shocking origin of â¦
THE CONSTANTINE AFFLICTION