The Black Opera (57 page)

Her hand grew no hotter in his, but it was as warm as if it had lain in the summer sun. He could not help stroking it, chiefly that web of skin between the thumb and forefinger. He wondered idly,
Do the Returned Dead came back with anything of interest to those who read palms?
—Is there an imprint of death on them?

Stop
thinking
. Delaying. Find out what brings her here in such secrecy!

Conrad asked directly, “Warn me about what?”

The crease of flesh between her brows was her familiar frown. His hand moved to smooth it away with the pad of his forefinger, and he had to force it to remain still at his side.
Because it's no longer my place.

“It's Roberto. I've been afraid for a while now—a long time, if I'm honest—”

“Does he hurt you?”

She blinked in the light of the oil lamps, as if the question took her completely aback.

“Oh—no. He doesn't hit me. Roberto would never hurt me! But…”

Say
“But… I want to leave him.”
Say
“But… I made a mistake, I want to come back to you.”

“There were always rumours about Ugo… Ugo was the Count of Argente before him…” She seemed to realise she was rambling and visibly pulled herself together. “He's a rich man—Roberto, I mean—and one doesn't move in those circles and meet completely honest men. I thought in the beginning that he was content to receive his rents and run his enterprises with that money. But I started to think… to look… I think that Roberto might be a member of—Well,” She finished in a rush. “Of a criminal society.”

“What?”
Conrad stifled an uncontrollable laugh. “He
what?
—you're serious.”

Leonora nodded, head lowered, chipped white tooth nipping at her lower lip. “I'm almost certain that Roberto is a Man of Honour.”

Her voice was a whisper.

“He has too much money. His competitors, they go out of business. No one talks of such things to a woman, socially, but because I'm what I am, they excuse a strange question here and there. Some of his dealings are
not
honest.”

Shocked, Conrad thought,
If true, surely the King would have discovered this when he took him on?

But Roberto is the only composer he could find
.

And if il Superbo has connections with crime that don't
directly
interfere with the counter-opera…

Ferdinand would be prepared to ignore that
.

Ferdinand would ignore
anything
. Mafia, Camorra, Carbonari—Freemasons—Knights of Malta—Order of the Golden Fleece—you name it! Roberto
can be anything he wants, short of being one of the Prince's Men, so long as he composes for the Two Sicilies!

Or is this just Nora being naive about how business works?

Conrad picked up Leonora's other hand and held both of them together. It would have been so easy to put his arms around her.

She looked up, white lamp-light catching in her great blue-violet irises. Her black pupils were wide enough almost to swallow up all the colour. Conrad felt that look from his sternum to his groin. In the past, everything had been abandoned at that look, to be dealt with later, after they had gone to bed with each other.

“Nora, if you've suspected this for some time, why does it worry you now?”

“You
need
to leave Naples.” Her hands closed hard on his, her grip as strong as a man's, though her hands were slender. “Corrado, please. Listen to me. You've done what the King wanted you to do. Roberto told me you've all but finished the book.
Go
. You don't need to be here when the opera goes on. Roberto won't be, I've heard him say so; nor will I.”

“He won't?” Conrad made an abstracted mental note that choosing Isaura as the conductor had been the right decision. He was numbly aware of a feeling of betrayal—Roberto Conte di Argente should at least stay and see things through, not take his wife and flee the town—

But then, if I were Nora's husband, I'd want to keep her safe above all else
.

“The end of Act Four isn't done,” he protested. “The finale. I'm still doing alterations for just about everybody. My cousin Paolo's staying to conduct.”

Leonora stood, swiftly. “Never
mind
your cousin! She can take care of herself—”

Conrad goggled up at Leonora. She stared back, the Nora of the Accademia quarter, both fists on her hips.

“Was I supposed not to
notice?
Never saw a more obvious Sapphic in my life! She's more or less said she doesn't want to be looked after, Corrado. I'm here to talk to
you
. For God's sake, leave Naples—come
with
us, if you wish; we have a coach, and I'll persuade Roberto! Or take a ship. Do whatever you want, but
leave
.”

“Why?” he demanded.

“Because I don't know what my husband is mixed up in, but if he's so determined to leave Naples by the morning of the performance, then you shouldn't stay! For all I know he's a revolutionary. It won't be the first time an opera's been the sign for an uprising! The
lazzaroni
are a mob waiting to happen, you can hear it in the harbour and the market.”

Conrad put out a hand to stop the flow of her words. “Why
me?”

She stood with an unearthly stillness, in the empty stone room, but now it had
a poised quality as if she only awaited the right moment to run.

“Roberto… has too much money. Too many friends. He had you put in prison.” Her lower lashes glinted, a fine film of moisture gathering there. “He used his friends and had you put in prison without even thinking about it! I asked him not to, Conrad. He said if I ever asked him for anything else on your behalf, I wouldn't like what he would do. If he thinks the opera doesn't need you… I know what the Honoured Men are like! Suppose they have you killed?”

“Then I'll come back Returned Dead and you'll never get rid of me.”

“Che stronzo!”

The slap of her hand disrupted his attempt at a smile. Her flesh was heavy, as well as heated; he realised his cheekbone would bruise.

All her orphanage heritage was in her flashing eyes and her voice, lowered to a hiss.

“You stupid bastard! What do you think I am, some lady who knows nothing of the world? The Honoured Men took young women and boys every year from the house where I grew up; we all knew they went to rich men. We knew
why
. Those are people who care nothing for others and I am so afraid I was mistaken, and that Roberto is one of them—”

The Returned Dead do not cry. This is what received wisdom says.

Conrad put that information with the rest of received wisdom and stood up, enfolding Leonora in his arms. Her body quivered with anger, and she bowed her forehead against his high collar and cravat, but hardly rested there. Hot fat tears rolled down her cheeks and dripped onto the lapel of his coat.

“Roberto is a
jealous
man.” It seemed as if she put her life in those few words.

Her hair smelled of sunlight, where he buried his face against it.

“I don't want
him
to be part of something like that. I don't want him to hurt
you
.” Her eyes were shadowed as she moved back. “I don't know what's truly happening in Naples. I just know that Roberto thinks it's dangerous. He's sending me away the morning before the opera opens. You can think what you like about Roberto, but he loves me, he'd never put me in any danger. If he thinks I should leave—then I know
you
should leave, Corrado.”

“Because you loved me once.” He couldn't stop himself sounding bitter.

“You
complete
idiot!”

She grasped the fabric of his coat as if she lacked balance.

“You
can
leave Naples now.
Leave
.”

Conrad felt as if he physically swayed where he stood. Their breathing echoed in the confined space. He fought to collect himself.

“Nora, the libretto isn't complete. I
can't
leave.”

Her fingers straightened his coat lapels, as if the precision needed for those
movements could rein in her temper. “Corrado, I am
trying
to… Will you
please
listen? I think… I think Naples will just become more and more dangerous for you.”

He put his hands over hers, stilling them. To have her adjusting his clothing with her own fingers while he remembered Venice…
Too much
. “I'll leave when I can. If there's anything I learn of your husband that you should know—I'll warn you.”

Nora made a fist and used it to push herself away from him, swaying where she stood, face still wet. The heat of her flesh dried her tears more quickly than would have happened with a living person.

“I don't know why I tried.” She shook her head.

I
can't believe I'm not permitted to touch her. This is Nora
: my
Nora
.

Conrad moved forward at the exact moment that she did.

He slid his palm over the fine curls at the nape of her neck, under her bonnet; tilting her head so that she looked up at him.

She stood up on her toes, quickly, and kissed him on the mouth.

“Oh, Dio, no!”
She stepped back. “I can't—I shouldn't—”

She slipped out, veil pulled down, the curtain barely moving at her passing.

He found Enrico Mantenucci in a confluence of dry aqueducts, in conference with the Spaniard-looking Colonel Alvarez. He waited until the two men had finished their business before approaching the Commendatore.

Enrico listened quietly.

“We checked Argente out,” he said, Conrad having told all that he remembered. “There are some
Sicilian
connections, yes, if you follow me. A few less than honest business connections in his banking, left over from when the previous Count Argente died—his brother Ugo.”

“So, not honest, but honest enough for us?”

Mantenucci clapped him on the shoulder. “Exactly! And since neither the Camorra nor the
società onorata
support the Prince's Men in any way that we can discover, I think you can stop worrying.”

“I'm in opera; I never stop worrying!” Conrad muttered.

The iron-haired police chief gave him a slow look of appraisal, taking in the bruise under his eye.

“I do commend your strength of will. I know men who would be halfway to Rome in a fast carriage by now—with the woman who warned them.”

Poised to protest that he was not afraid of the criminal societies, the last
comment caught him entirely unaware.

“She didn't intend to come with me!” As raw as the honesty felt, Conrad managed a sardonic smile. “It isn't the first time Nora's wanted to see the back of me. Even if this time it is for… for old times' sake, I suppose.”

Enrico gave a bark of laughter. “If you suppose
that
…”

The grey-haired man's incredulous amusement turned to sympathy.

“Conrad, women don't defy their husbands, secretly, just to beg a man they no longer care for to go into safety. I imagine if you were willing, her next offer would be to take you there personally. So I commend you that you can hold off for the week more that we need. What you do after that—is between the three of you and God.”

H
ours passed, neither day nor dark. Conrad took refuge with Tullio while the older man healed. That gave Tullio a guard as he slept, and spared another man for the outer entrances to the underworld.

Count Roberto was for once ahead of Conrad in composition: sketches of music easily suited to quatrains or couplets. Conrad threw himself into the libretto—and was not surprised when Act IV's finale refused to come into shape.

How can it, when I've blocked off the parts of me that
feel?

It would be easy to create a tragedy by the numbers. Fernando Cortez is stabbed by a jealous rival and dies; General Chimalli is poisoned by the treacherous High Priest; they are buried in twin monuments in a joint funeral, and Princess Tayanna sings a finale in which she begs to be laid to rest between the two men who loved her, and drops dead of heartbreak as the curtain falls. United in death.