3 - Cruel Music (15 page)

I crossed my arms with a sigh. “You said you cut your hands on broken glass, but when Cardinal Montorio took me into his workroom, he denied that there had been any accident with the electrical jars.”

Lenci rolled his eyes. “Zio Stefano thinks he’s the greatest natural philosopher since Galileo. He never admits to a mistake, and he won’t be gainsaid. If he tells you the sky is green, he expects you to agree. No matter what he told you, the truth is that I cut my hands on his shattered Leyden jars. He merely replaced them with fresh ones that he had on hand.”

I stared at Lenci’s serious young face, then gazed at the roof of the pavilion over the garden’s bare branches. The cool breeze ruffled my hair and I pushed it back into place. Should I tell Lenci what befell his lover in the garden, or was he leading me down another blind alley in this maze of deception?

“Why do my hands matter, anyway?”

I remained silent, still unsure.

“Signor Amato, you must tell me. I fear for Gemma. And I am not the only one. Her mother is beside herself with worry.”

“Gemma has family in Rome?”

He nodded. “Her mother is a widow who depends on her children’s wages. Gemma has several brothers who are in the pope’s army. Her sister works as a laundress at a foundling home. It actually took me several days to find the house—Gemma had only mentioned the general neighborhood. It’s a ramshackle place on the Tiber near the Hebrew ghetto, the smelliest, most pestilential place in Rome.”

“I gather that Gemma’s mother hasn’t seen her, either.”

“No. Gemma stops by every Sunday. She’s missed two Sunda
ys, now, and the last was her mother’s name day—unheard of for Gemma to miss that.”

“Has her family searched for her?” I asked, still hesitating.

“Absolutely. The sister came here to the Villa Fabiani at the end of last week. She questioned the housekeeper, who turned her over to Rossobelli. He fed her some story about Gemma walking out without giving notice. He showed no concern for Gemma’s welfare—as much as called her a whore. Said he ‘thinks there might be a man involved—a bargeman from the river.’ Ha!” Lenci hit his fist into his palm. “He’s more than a sanctimonious clod. He’s an outright liar.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Are you so sure?”

Lenci was silent for a moment. His pink tongue flicked around his lips. “You speak of trust, Signor Amato. I’m giving you mine by telling you that I’m absolutely certain Gemma never left here of her own free will. Gemma shared quarters with Teresa, the head house maid. They were friends…Gemma was supposed to keep me a secret, but…you know how women talk. Yesterday, when Zio Stefano dismissed me before he went in to Cardinal Fabiani, I saw my chance to seek Teresa out. I found her brushing the carpet in the second floor hallway. She didn’t want to talk at first, but when she saw I wouldn’t be put off, she told me about the night Gemma disappeared. Gemma didn’t pack her bags, Rossobelli did. He did his dirty work in the dark. Teresa pretended to be asleep, but she wasn’t. She watched from under the covers as he whisked Gemma’s things into a bag and crept out the door.”

“Has she told anyone else of this?”

“Not yet. Teresa rather fancies keeping her position, but I don’t think she’ll lie to a magistrate. Unemployment is far superior to prison.”

“A magistrate?” Hearing my voice raise to a squeak, I cleared my throat and asked as calmly as I could, “How did a magistrate get involved?”

“Since Gemma’s family received no satisfaction from Rossobelli, they called in a city magistrate. So far, he’s only checked the hospitals and ordered the constables to be on the alert for…for any bodies in the river or back alleys.” Lenci choked over those last words, then toughened his tone. “He’ll no doubt widen his investigation once I give him Teresa’s information. I wonder how Rossobelli will like being grilled by Mario Sertori? I’ve heard he’s a hard man, not nearly so impressed with churchmen as the rest of Rome.”

I displayed what I judged to be an appropriate expression of surprise. Behind my carefully molded features, my mind was racing. Fabiani would protect his mother at all costs and direct his toady Rossobelli to do the same. I’d been in Rome long enough to learn that the city was under the direct regime of its own governor: a prelate, of course, ultimately answerable to the pope, but one who oversaw a cadre of laymen. In the way of petty officials everywhere, these constables, magistrates, and judges enjoyed pulling the noses of their social superiors whenever they were handed the opportunity. I asked myself, how would Fabiani respond if this Mario Sertori pressed the question of Gemma’s disappearance?

A cold ball of fear took possession of my stomach and rapidly expanded to chill my entire being. Fabiani’s plan was suddenly crystal clear. I saw why I’d been called to carry Gemma’s body away. It was more than a simple exercise of power. Gemma was of little account in Fabiani’s book, a mere servant, and he hoped she would be quickly forgotten. But if her body did chance to surface or anyone showed up at the villa making troublesome inquiries, Cardinal Fabiani had groomed me as a custom-made scapegoat. By involving old Benelli, the cardinal had even guaranteed a witness to my criminal behavior.

I heard Lenci’s voice through the drumming of the blood in my ears. “You’ve gone pale. Are you ill?” he asked, starting forward in concern.

I made my decision in that instant. Like an understudy tapped to replace an ailing prima donna, the mystery of Gemma’s murder suddenly moved from the ranks of the chorus to centerstage. To protect my own neck, I had to discover the maid’s killer, and I knew I couldn’t do it alone.

“Abate Lenci,” I began. “I’m afraid I have some very bad…” I stopped when a persistent pounding on my door penetrated through my chamber to the balcony. “Wait, I must answer that,” I murmured. “Stay here, out of sight.”

I sprinted across my sitting room. With each resounding knock, the door jumped in its frame. I jerked it open. Another abate greeted me—Rossobelli, his cheeks bright red with exertion.

“Signor Amato,” he cried, panting. “You must come right away. Your man Benito’s been run down—badly hurt. They took him to the Consolazione.”

Part Three

“Pretexts are not wanting when one wishes to use them.”

—Carlo Goldoni

Chapter Fifteen

The hospital of Santa Maria della Consolazione lay across the Tiber, at the foot of the Capitoline Hill. Abate Rossobelli had called for a carriage and insisted on climbing in after me.

He perched on the front seat, facing me, canting his head this way and that: a gigantic, white-faced crow exuding an air of genteel concern. “You must allow me to accompany you. Cardinal Fabiani would think me remiss if I allowed you to make this difficult journey alone.”

I nodded.

Holding my gaze, he raised his fist and rapped on the roof for the driver to start on.

Out in the streets, a bright sun beamed down on throngs of Romans going about their everyday business. Most of the faces that turned toward the carriage sporting the cardinal’s coat of arms mixed a flicker of curiosity with the tedium of oft-repeated activities. At that moment, I would have traded my vocal cords for the boredom of an ordinary day. My mind was in a tumult. Rossobelli explained that a boy had run from the Trastevere with the news that a servant from the Villa Fabiani had been run down by a drayman’s cart. The lad’s description left no doubt of Benito’s identity:
finocchio
, he’d called him, a poof. I peppered Rossobelli with questions about his injuries, but the abate couldn’t say. The boy had been more interested in collecting a few coins than furnishing details.

We crossed the river at the Isola Tiberina and soon stopped in a courtyard formed by a soaring church of smooth gray stone and an outflung arm of the same material. A flight of steps bisected the hospital wing; I took them two at a time. Rossobelli followed at a more dignified pace. Bursting through the doors and running toward a long mahogany counter, I cried, “Benedetto Benaducci! Where is he?”

A gnome-like nun wearing a white habit and intricately pleated wimple bent over a ledger. I fidgeted while she ran her skeletal finger down the list of names. She finally shook her head, gazing at me over the top of her spectacles.

“Please,” I begged. “He was admitted earlier today. An accident victim.”

“They are all accident victims, Signore.” She addressed me severely. “That is the only type of patient we accept…but the name you speak is not on the list.”

I reached across the desk to turn the heavy book so I could see for myself, only to have my hand smacked with the large crucifix that dangled from her waist.

Rossobelli approached the counter with a solemn frown. His clerical garb seemed to impress the nun more than my fashionable attire.

“We’re looking for a small man who was run down in the Trastevere just over an hour ago,” Rossobelli said. With a sidelong glance at me, he added even more gravely, “He may not have been able to state his name.”

“Wait here.” She slid off her stool and scuttled down the corridor like a white crab.

I paced, puzzling over Benito’s supposed accident. Carriage mishaps were fairly common. The topheavy, enclosed two seaters were particularly prone to upsets if the driver underestimated his speed around a corner. That’s why a pair of grooms was often assigned the duty of riding on the back to counterbalance the weight. But a drayman’s cart was hardly a speeding carriage. It was a heavy vehicle, pulled by one plodding horse. When had my nimble, sure-footed manservant not been capable of jumping out of the way of a lumbering cart?

Rossobelli walked over to a small shrine where a plaster Madonna with outstretched arms presided over a bank of flickering candles. The abate surprised me by kneeling to pray. Over his bent head, I saw a plaque blackened with age and a locked metal box chained to the railing.

I stopped pacing. Unable to decipher the plaque and searching for an innocuous topic to keep my fears at bay, I asked, “Do you read Latin?”

“Of course,” he replied, raising his chin but keeping his palms pressed together.

“What does that say?”

He translated without hesitation. “All in need, from whatever corner of the world, are welcome here without restriction.” He cleared his throat. “This is a charity hospital, Signor Amato, run on the alms and donations of pilgrims.”

As Rossobelli’s chin again sank to his chest, I took my purse from an interior pocket and slipped a coin through the slot in the box. I was too angry to pray.

In a few minutes, the guardian of the admissions desk returned with a young nursing sister. A gray smock covered her white habit almost entirely, making her rosy cheeks and pink lips the only spots of color about her person.

I hurried to her side while Rossobelli pushed stiffly to his feet.

“Follow me,” she commanded in a half-whisper. “The men’s ward is this way. If we hurry, the surgeon may still be there. Are you his family?”

“Yes.” The word escaped my lips without thought. “Well, the closest to family that he has. Actually, I’m Benito’s employer. How is he?”

She set her lips in a firm line. “It’s not my place to say. The doctor will explain.” Quickening her pace, she led us up one staircase and down a corridor to a cavernous ward lined by beds surrounded by canvas screens. The smell was horrific:
putrefaction and the odors of bodily functions permeated the air. Cries and moans rose from all sides.

My manservant lay in a raised bed with roughly squared wooden posts. He had been covered by a thin woolen blanket; the shallow rising and falling of that worn blanket was the only sign that he still lived. Benito’s face, normally so alert and expressive, could have been mistaken for a death mask fashioned of polished ivory. A gauze bandage covered the crown of his head, and his left arm was bound up in a sling.

Hot tears bathed my eyes as I groped for Benito’s free hand. Several times I called his name, but his frighteningly still expression never wavered.

Rossobelli grasped my shoulder. Starting as if a spider had landed there, I brushed his long fingers away.

“The doctor,” he murmured.

A tired looking surgeon in a blood-stained smock lumbered to the bedside. He pulled the covers down and put his ear to Benito’s bandaged chest. Clucking his tongue, he turned his attention to his patient’s head. After prodding and poking every crevice, he raised Benito’s eyelids with a flick of his thumb. I cringed at the filth that covered the doctor’s hands.

“Will he live?” I asked tremulously.

The doctor shrugged his sloping shoulders. “This man is gravely injured, probably dragged over the cobblestones by the cart that hit him. I’ve done what I can—bled him, set the fracture, taped the ribs, and dressed the cuts and scrapes. The head injury rests in God’s hands.”

“Has he said anything?”

Another shrug.

“No.” The nurse spoke for the first time since we had reached the bedside. “He neither speaks nor seems to hear.”

The doctor had turned to pass through the opening in the canvas screens. I moved to block his exit. “What happens now? What must I do?”

“Wait,” the man growled. “As we all will.” He pushed past me, then added in a softer tone, “Sometimes, when the brain has been injured, it goes into hiding. To lick its own wounds, so to speak.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it needs,” he flung over his shoulder as he disappeared behind another screen.

“Here now,” the nurse flared up behind me. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

I whirled. Rossobelli hovered over Benito, rearranging and patting his covers.

“Stop that this minute,” she continued.

The abate straightened quickly. His sharp cheekbones made ruddy slashes across his pale face. “I was just trying to make him more comfortable.”

“That’s my job.” The nurse rounded the foot of the bed and inserted her willowy form between the abate and Benito. The fabric of her habit pulled as she stiffened her shoulders. “Perhaps you should wait in the corridor.” Her half-whisper carried a hint of steel.

Rossobelli glowered but retreated through the screens and out of the stuffy ward. I suddenly felt much better about leaving my manservant in the care of this capable young woman.

“What is your name, Sister?”

“I’m Sister Regina.”

“Will you be tending to Benito all the time?”

She sent me a ghost of a smile. “There are six of us assigned to this ward. Our quarters are at the back, so several of us are always on duty. But as you see, this ward holds forty patients, and the beds don’t stay empty for long…” She sighed and folded her hands over her smock. “We do the best we can, Signore.”

My fingers again sought the purse in my jacket pocket. My time might not be my own, but thanks to my triumph in Dresden, I did have plenty of money.

The nun flinched when she saw what I was about.

“You mustn’t do that,” she said. “I can’t accept money. I’m not even allowed to touch it. It’s a rule of our order.”

“Who empties the offertory box I saw downstairs?”

“Father Giancarlo, from the church next door. He’s the hospital superintendent.”

“Does the Consolazione have a children’s ward?”

“Yes.” She gestured toward the ceiling. “On the floor above.”

I held up a thick gold coin. The nun’s eyes widened. It was a Roman crown that could buy ten blankets, many dozens of eggs, or fifteen pounds of prime beef. “I’ll visit every afternoon. For each day that I find Benito alive and well cared for, I’ll give Father Giancarlo one of these to spend on the children.”

“Very generous, Signore,” she murmured.

“One more thing.” I fixed her clear gray eyes with my own. “If anyone besides me pays my friend a visit, a nurse will find something to do nearby. I want to know who comes, what they do, and what they say.”

Sister Regina dipped her chin in a solemn nod. We had struck a bargain.

***

After leaving my first offering with Father Giancarlo, I found Rossobelli waiting by the carriage. He gave me an icy greeting and bade me climb in to return to the villa.

“No,” I replied. “I need to be on my own for a bit. I’ll walk, thank you.”

Rossobelli looked like he was going to give me an argument but evidently changed his mind, merely saying, “At least I can take that package for you.”

I clutched the bundle of Benito’s clothing that Sister Regina had wrapped up with twine. “That won’t be necessary.”

“As you wish.” He entered the carriage, slammed the door, then poked his head through the open window. “This unfortunate incident doesn’t relieve you of your duties, you know. His Eminence will require you at eight o’clock sharp.”

The carriage had barely rolled away when Guido trotted up, his handsome face blotchy with exertion and strain. “Signor Amato, I came as soon as I heard. How is Benito? Is he going to be all right?”

I told the footman all I knew, little as it was, then added, “Did Rossobelli see you? He just left in the carriage.”

Guido shook his head. “I saw it coming and stepped into a doorway, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not on duty until this evening. He can’t stop me from seeing Benito if I want.” He cocked a thick eyebrow and asked hesitantly, “You don’t mind if I go up, do you, Signore?”

“Of course not.”

I must admit to a twinge of jealousy as I watched the footman mount the stairs as quickly as I had. Benito’s amorous liaisons were generally casual and short-lived, nothing to compete with his primary occupation of seeing to my needs, but this relationship with Guido seemed more serious. If God’s grace allowed Benito to live, Guido might still take my loyal companion and sometime nursemaid from me.

Feeling curiously adrift, I squared my shoulders, reproached myself for my selfishness, and set off for the Trastevere. The Romans were an idle lot. The women always seemed to be gossiping from their windows and the men playing cards or throwing dice on the stairs. Even the shopkeepers spent more time in the doorway than behind the counter. I shouldn’t complain. Their laziness might produce an eyewitness who could describe Benito’s accident firsthand.

The right place wasn’t hard to find; many fingers pointed the way. It seemed that everyone had heard the news and was eager to express an opinion on the dangers of heavily loaded vehicles driven by heedless madmen.

I chose to question a beggar I’d noticed on previous excursions through this quarter. He was a fat, amiable man of middle years who occupied a certain street corner as if it were his personal drawing room, a corner that happened to be directly opposite the site of Benito’s misfortune. My beggar decorated his person with tarnished medals and bits of military uniforms from several countries. He balanced his weight between one good leg and a wooden peg that took the place of a missing limb.

“Lost it at the Battle of Parma,” he explained cheerfully, “courtesy of an Austrian cannonball. Those sausage eaters did me a favor, really. If I’d stayed a soldier, I probably wouldn’t be here at all.”

I dropped a few coins in the hat which he’d quickly doffed. “Were you here earlier this morning? When the man was run down?”

“To be sure. You can find me here nine to six every day. I set my time by the bells of the monastery at the top of the street.” He showed yellow teeth in a smile, circling his wrist to make the coins dance and jingle. I added to their number. My purse was suddenly getting more of a workout than it had during my entire stay in Rome.

“How did it happen?” I asked.

“You see that wall?” He pointed across the street to a shoulder-high structure that ran the length of the block and surrounded what looked to be a pottery factory. “The poor fellow was right in the middle there—had a canny little smile on his face—bouncing along with a swivel in the hindquarters, almost like a young miss.”

I nodded at the particularly apt description of my manservant.

“Along came a cart piled high with casks, the sort that haulers use to shift liquid goods from the warehouse to the shops and fine houses. It was moving at a good clip. Nothing odd in that, we’ve got a slope here, running down to the river. But when the driver saw the fellow, he cracked his whip…laid into the nag something fierce…drew blood.” The beggar fell silent and shook his head.

“It was deliberate, then?”