The Black Opera (93 page)

He wants to die
.

How ironic is it that
I
can't follow her because I have to help my rival?

And the others
, the practical part of his mind emerged to say.
Paolo, Tullio, JohnJack, Sandrine, Ferdinand; the rest.

He let the practical mind take over, splitting his emotions away with practised ease, like fissuring a rock.
Maida, again
. A battle is no place for complex passions. For grief over the dead.

That comes later.

There are others to be got out of this. And after—well, that will be my decision
.

He rested his hand on Paolo's shoulder, on her man's coat. “You and Tullio splint his legs. I don't care what you use. I'll see who else of us is alive.”

Paolo's red-rimmed eyes held an oddly-aged understanding and gratitude.

Conrad turned away, to the clouds of yellow gases that swirled, parting to show the tiers of seating, and closing in again. He sheltered his mouth with his hands and called, broke down coughing, and called out again.

Velluti staggered out of the covering murk, supported by Sandrine and Spinelli. The castrato failed to form words. He bled from the corners of his mouth.

Conrad found himself torn between the memory of Velluti matching Leonora in the stretta, bringing the sextet up to overcome the solo soprano voice, and the knowledge that something irreplaceable had likely been destroyed.

He took refuge in practicality.

“Sandrine, JohnJack, find help for him. Collect as many people as you can.
See who's missing. I'll talk to Ferdinand. No—” He held up a hand as they protested. “—We have to evacuate the Amphitheatre.
Now
. It's too dangerous to run around like chickens with the fox in the hen-house!”

JohnJack wrapped one hand around Sandrine's arm. “We'll call the roll.”

A handful of men appeared out of ash and gases. Conrad shouldered forward to one whose stance he recognised. Uniform and hair grey with ash, but unmistakably Ferdinand Bourbon-Sicily.

“Corrado!” The King's expression was sheer military exhilaration. “Good! I have a refugee column; join your people to it—What?”

“Sire!” One of Alvarez's corporals interrupted, skidding to a halt. “Scout report from the top of the arena. More of the Burning Fields is visible. They report big eruptions from Monte Nuovo and Solfatara. Lots of small lava floods everywhere. The
Campi Flegrei
can be crossed to the west, at the moment, but not east towards Posillipo and Naples.”

The corporal turned to a man Conrad recognised, with surprise, as Fabrizio Alvarez, much the worse for wear but evidently rescued from
il Principe
.

“Captain says, he thinks you ought to see it for yourself, sir.”

Colonel Alvarez saluted his king and departed in the soldier's wake at a ground-covering trot.

Ferdinand rubbed at his chin, apparently unaware that he smeared pumice and ash across himself as he did. “The Burning Grounds are breaking up, I think. We'll be lucky to get our people out.”

Conrad blotted out everything but the current emergency from his thoughts. “Land or sea?”

Ferdinand's blue eyes showed red around the rims, and at the corners. He stood foursquare, feet placed apart on the shaking earth.

“We'll go out the way we came in, where the top tier of seats is level with the ground outside. What concerns me is how many injured men I have.”

“I have two who can't walk,” Conrad supplied. “There may be more to come.”

“Get your able-bodied to move them. We're leaving as fast we can. If we lose contact, make for Pozzuoli and the
Apollon
.”

“Sire.” Conrad touched his forehead in salute, automatically Lieutenant Scalese,
Cacciatore a Cavallo
.

He turned away as the King took other scout reports—and had a moment of complete blankness.

I forgot her!

Hot shame fought with practical survival:

I
have
to forget her now.

He staggered back across the uncertain earth. A larger group clustered around
Tullio Rossi, in the ragged remains of costume or evening dress. Two Kings' riflemen appeared by Velluti, crossed wrists to make a cradle and scooped him up, heading for the southern tiers of steps.

“Go with him.” Conrad put his hand on JohnJack's shoulder, giving him a push. “You too, Brigida, Sandrine, quickly!”

The
basso
called his name. Conrad waved a hand without looking back. “I'll be there! Go!”

He made his way cautiously out over the arena floor, that sloped now. Red light flickered through the dust storm. The black ash-cone spurting from the earthquake-cleft, no larger than a loaf of bread at its birth, now stood waist-high to a man.

Nora. Leonora!

Tullio and Isaura moved almost as mirror images of one another, torn shirt-sleeves and cravats binding Roberto Capiraso's legs to a makeshift wooden splint. They had lashed both legs together with a musket between, the barrel and stock long enough to span from foot to pelvis, wood and steel a strong enough support.

Tullio stripped off coat and shirt, put his coat back on, and bit at the linen to tear it. Paolo added her neck-stock as a last binding over the others. The Count's legs resembled an Aegyptian mummy. She stood.

She's shaking
, Conrad realised.

Paolo didn't seem to notice it. She said, “He'll live if we can get him out of here before the broken bone cuts an artery.”

Conrad found himself curtly realistic. “He has more chance of burning than bleeding. Are we set to go?”

Sandrine strode up in some luckless male's boots. A dozen of the King's riflemen followed, with chorus singers, musicians, and the other refugees from the San Carlo.

Several stray Prince's Men trailed after the riflemen, their hands tied. At Sandrine's sharp command, they formed a column, escorting the staggering men and women through the smoke and gas, and on up the aisle towards the high exits on the southern side.

“Well?” Tullio demanded. “I take it this muck in here is still better than what's outside?”

Conrad flicked a glanced at the exit stairs, and how many flights there were up to the amphitheatre's north-western rim. He didn't soften it.

“Out that way, then try to keep everybody together while we find Pozzuoli. Assuming the roads aren't blocked—make for the
Apollon
before the Burning Fields go sky high. It may get rough at sea, but there's worse to come on land.”

“Dio!” Tullio's expression showed what he thought of that.

Gaps in the swirling sulphurous murk let Conrad see the King's column moving up the steps, towards the rim of the Amphitheatre. Ferdinand himself loomed out of the smoke.

He beckoned Conrad without breaking stride.

“Corrado—if it means saving the able-bodied, we will leave the wounded. But not until it's
absolutely
necessary. Are your people ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Count stirred. Conrad knelt, instantly, and gripped Roberto's shoulders firmly.
Because he'll try to run, and make a cripple of himself!

“Leonora.” Roberto's voice grated, acid with grief and disappointment.

Conrad stated it brutally and without tact. “It's true. We both saw it. She's dead.”

The Conte di Argente made to move, and slumped. Conrad eyed the dirty bandages that wound him from hip to foot.

Self-evidently he can't stand on his own. So—

Conrad gestured for Tullio to help pull the man up. Tullio's powerful shoulder under Roberto's armpit heaved the Count upright so that his feet barely touched the earth.

Conrad caught Roberto's right arm and pulled it sharply forward. At the same moment he ducked his own shoulder under the other man's lower ribs and into his stomach, and pulled Roberto's arm over his shoulder. He braced, breathing hard. Tullio supported him from one side, Paolo from the other, and he lifted.

An in-breath made him choke.
“Che cazzo!”

He stood with the man's body balanced over his shoulders, Roberto's head resting down his back, and splinted legs hanging over Conrad's chest and belly.

For a minute he thought they would both fall.

He got his feet braced squarely apart, and adjusted to the twelve stone deadeight draped warm and limp over him. He steadied the bound legs with his hand.
One thrash and we'll both be on the dirt—!

The other man hung slumped over his shoulder and back.

Is that the weight of the splints on his injuries?

“Has he fainted?” Conrad grunted.

“—Syphilitic son of a cock-sucking whore—!”

Tullio lifted his voice over Il Superbo's flow of raw insults. “Uh, I don't think so, padrone…”

Isaura made a small snorting noise, part laughter and part distress.

Roberto Capiraso subsided into grunts of suppressed pain.

Might be better to let him curse
.

His sister glanced at Tullio. Something in her expression brought another face to Conrad: pale and gamin, under clouds of soft brown hair.

Water washes the volcanic particles from the eyes. Water is good.
And tears are water, aren't they?

It took three of them to carry the wounded man up the Amphitheatre steps to the earth outside. Conrad shared the weight awkwardly with Tullio—the composer unconscious, now—and they eased him over the lip of the excavation.

Tullio grunted, reaching down, and lifted up first Sandrine and then Paolo, his hands encircling their waists, as if neither of them weighed more than a bale of straw.

Wild wind thrashed. A harder tremor shook the ground. It was easier to see, outside the amphitheatre, but more difficult to walk. Conrad took the Conte di Argente up over his shoulder again. Rocks and ash-camouflaged holes caught at his feet. Thin whips of scrub slashed his face. Tullio grabbed his elbow as he almost came down. He hit Roberto's legs with a flailing hand, and the Count swore.

“You can't carry me!” Roberto's voice protested thickly, close to his ear.

“I can drop you, if you'd rather!”

All his effort went into supporting the man; he had none to spare for politeness. Conrad tasted grit in his mouth, hauling in a lungful of air. He let Tullio steady him, made sure he had the Count's body securely over his shoulders, and a tight grip on the man's arm and splinted legs.

The air above was dark as snow on a midwinter afternoon.

The pathway down towards Pozzuoli passed in and out of vision, yellow-tinged clouds adding to the sleeting ash. Conrad did not think of the ship waiting, in the harbour. He plodded on, aware he must be ahead of two-thirds of the column, conscious only of grey ash caking every bush and track, the wheeze of his breathing, and splinter-pains stabbing at his chest.

Roberto's voice sounded strained, weakened, but full of malice.

“I've seen Christ painted like this, carrying the one sheep that was lost back to the flock. Is this a newly-discovered Christian feeling in you, to rescue your fellow man?”

“Purely
altruistic—!” Conrad just stopped himself from adding
God knows why!
He winced, pulled muscles catching him. “Read Plato—Socrates—!”

“A few more minutes and we can ask them in person!”

The man's heavy weight shifted; evidently he was trying to look around at the rest of the straggling column of soldiers and operatic refugees.

“Stay still,
che stronzo!”

“Put me down! I can walk.”

“Of course you can,” Tullio murmured. He strode beside Conrad, his right hand gripping Paolo's left. “…You got a clean break above the left foot. You want to shove it out of kilter and let bone splinters slash up the muscle, you go right ahead and put your weight on it.”

Conrad felt the man's breath increase, where he lay prone over Conrad's shoulder.

“I don't need to be carried!”

“Not sure what the other leg's got.” Remorselessly cheerful, Tullio continued. “Cracked the bone, I think; it's swollen all to hell. You can go running around on that, too, if you want. Then you can see the rest of your life from a wheeled invalid-chair.”

Tension rolled through the composer's muscles; Conrad could feel it where the man sprawled helplessly over his shoulders.

“Leave it,” Conrad ordered sharply.

He'd rather be dumped here for the short time it will take him to die
.

And so would I
.

He wondered briefly if either Tullio or Paolo realised it—and almost missed his footing again.

Scheisse! I have to concentrate!

The earth juddered.

The concentration needed excluded all else but moving one plodding foot in front of the other. Rocks littered the heathland. Fireballs shot across the darkening sky: rocks hit scrub and it burst into flames. Lightning cracked, more deafening than thunder.