3 - Cruel Music (23 page)

“I’m not alone. Maddelena is from Monteborgo. Her aunt and uncle who still live there accompanied me to Rome and helped me with Tito. Maddelena was glad to give us shelter. But even without them, I would have been all right. Followers of the Old Religion never turn our backs on a fellow devotee, either friend or stranger.”

“How do you find each other?”

“We have ways.”

“Like the cimaruta?”

“That’s one way. There are also certain signs on gates and buildings.”

I remembered the crude drawing by Maddelena’s door and the figure on Pompetti’s gate. With my head lolling on the cushions, I asked, “Would frogs have anything to do with that?” My voice sounded odd, booming and fragile at the same time.

Chuckling, Liya took my empty glass and set it aside. Her face seemed to glow with a radiant light. “How do you feel?” she asked.

I stretched my arms high, surprised at how light yet powerful they felt. I closed my eyes and tried to remember what had happened earlier that day, but the Quirinal Palace and old Benelli’s hut seemed as distant and unimportant as a Chinaman tending his field on the other side of the world.

Liya was all that filled my consciousness: the smooth flesh of her shoulders, the curve of her hips, her tiny ankles. Her mouth closed on mine, and a moment later, I was untying her apron and pulling at the laces of her bodice. A musky scent filled my nose. Her soft breasts seemed to spill into my hands. She stopped me then, but only long enough to blow out the candle and pull me toward the bed.

Whether it was the mysterious herb or the magic of two bodies that sought to become one, my love flowed sure and strong. Liya’s ardor matched my own, and we surrendered to forces that had been building since we’d met in Venice so long ago.

***

Hours later, I awoke to a rhythmic shudder that seemed to emanate from the surrounding walls. For the duration of one lurching heartbeat, I forgot where I was. A warm, soft weight lay across my chest, and something was tickling my nose. I inhaled cautiously—bergamot and lavender—and smiled as the memories came flooding back.

Moving gingerly, I eased Liya off my chest and looked up at the window. The barest trace of dawn shone there. The pulsing shudder continued.

“What is it, Tito?” Liya shook her hair back and propped herself up on one elbow.

“I don’t know. Listen.”

Very near, a series of mournful bongs sounded in
basso profundo
.

“That’s the bell from the church on the square,” Liya said.

It was answered by a peal of higher pitch.

She drew her knees up under the cover. “That’s Santa Cecilia down by the river.”

The bells continued to peal, joined by others near and far. It seemed that every minute a hundred more entered the clanging, jangling fray. The din flew through the air above the city, coursed through stone and timber, and shook the very bowels of the earth. I had never heard anything like it.

“Every bell in Rome must be tolling,” I said wonderingly.

Liya nodded, then winced as the looking glass above her dressing table trembled and fell with a tinkling crash. Pressing closer, she enfolded me in a ferocious embrace. We clung together, rocking softly back and forth. We both understood. The monstrous clanging was a wordless message, more profound than words could ever be.

Pope Clement was dead.

Part Four

“Seek thee out some other chase, for I myself must hunt this deer to death.”

—William Shakespeare

Chapter Twenty-three

“Zio Antonio is here. His coach arrived just before dawn.” Abate Lenci gave me a sidelong glance as he plucked a dead leaf from a vine in the walled garden of the Palazzo Venezia. We were quite alone; a gardener raking the gravel path had shuffled off at our approach.

“Your uncle traveled at night? Over those mountain roads?
”

Lenci raised his boyish face to the tenuous warmth of the midday sun. “He left Venice the instant the news of the pope’s death reached San Marco’s—in a coach and six that changed horses at short intervals, decked out with extra lamps so the darkness couldn’t stop its progress.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Mourners had been pouring into Rome for several days. The natives spent half their time hawking food and souvenirs and the other half cursing the clogged streets. Senator Antonio Montorio had more reason than most to make the journey. Tradition set the opening of the conclave for nine days after a pope’s death; six days remained. During that time, the senator would be up to his neck in negotiation with Fabiani and the other cardinals, who would soon be under lock and key in the Vatican.

“I suppose the senator wants to talk to me,” I said over the lump in my throat, “since he sent a carriage to fetch me.”

“Oh yes. He was quite distressed when Zio Stefano told him you’d been avoiding us.”

“What? But I haven’t…it’s so hard to get away…Fabiani summons me on a whim.” I paused, realizing that my voice was rising to a screech. I continued in a more dignified tone, “I’ve been ill, as well.”

“Yes, unfortunate for you.” He plucked another withered leaf and crumpled it in his fist. “I hope that Magistrate Sertori hasn’t been leaning on you too hard, given your weakened state.” He regarded me with eyes that could have been twin spheres of blue ice.

“Lenci, I—”

He grabbed the front of my coat, pulling me off my feet. As I stumbled, he shook me, growling. “You knew. That day on your balcony, before we were interrupted, you were going to tell me that Gemma was dead. Then you thought better of it.” I gripped his wrists. His face was inches from mine. “Didn’t I deserve to know—the one who loved her above all others?”

I broke his hold. He shoved me hard, his palms flat to my chest. I scrambled for balance, but ended up splayed like a starfish on the gravel path. Wincing, I blinked up at the young man with his arms stiff at his sides. His breath was coming in short gasps. So was mine.

“You have a right to be angry, but will you just listen a moment?” I bent my knees and pushed up on one elbow, tensing in expectation of another outburst. “Please?”

Grimly, he extended a hand. I took it, and he pulled me up.

“My hat,” I said, pointing to my tricorne, which now crowned a bare rose bush.

Lenci jerked the hat off the thorns and squashed it into my chest. “Enough stalling. Tell me what you know.”

I would rather have kept my own counsel, but it wouldn’t do to have Lenci feeling that I’d betrayed him. I didn’t need to create an enemy. I had enough of those already. I said, “I don’t know how you found out, but yes, Gemma is dead. Rossobelli found her in the little pavilion by the cardinal’s garden wall.”

The color drained from his cheeks. “How?” he asked gruffly.

“She was strangled with one of the marchesa’s scarves.”

He inhaled sharply. “The old lady killed her?”

I shook my head. “Someone else used Marchesa Fabiani’s scarf as a weapon of convenience.”

“Who?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to discover. But tell me, how did you learn that Gemma was dead?”

“Magistrate Sertori received a note advising him to question a woodsman about Gemma’s disappearance, an old retainer of the cardinal who lives on the river.”

I twisted my hat brim. “Atto Benelli.”

“Yes, Sertori questioned him a few days ago. Benelli kept mum at first, pretending that he was hard of hearing. But Sertori is relentless. He badgered the old man until he finally admitted that he helped a tall, beardless man from the villa dispose of a mysterious bundle in the Tiber.” Lenci gulped, wiping sudden tears from his eyes. “A bundle that could only have been my Gemma.”

“You’ve been talking with Sertori, then.”

The abate nodded in a quick jerk. “Absolutely. He’s the only one trying to get to the bottom of this horrible business. Yesterday, he took Benelli out on a boat to show him where you two dumped Gemma. He intends to drag the river.”

Lenci finished with such a dreadful look that I took a step back. I put my hand to the dagger in my waistcoat pocket. I could overlook one grief-stricken outburst, but if the abate attacked me again, he’d be facing a blade. “I didn’t hurt Gemma,” I said, regarding Lenci with a steadfast gaze.

He nodded stiffly. “If I thought you had, you’d be at the bottom of the Tiber with her.”

“And Fabiani coerced me into helping with her shameful burial.”

“How? A pistol to your head…or did he threaten to have Rossobelli crush you to death with fawning and flattery?”

“You forget. My brother is being held hostage to the outcome of an election that Cardinal Fabiani will control.”

“I could hardly forget—my ears are stuffed with the conclave every minute of the day. Is that why Gemma was killed? Because she allowed Fabiani to draw her into his schemes? Could it have been one of Pompetti’s bravos?”

“I don’t believe so. Despite knowing that Gemma was spying at Fabiani’s behest, Lady Mary had taken a liking to her. She saw promise in the girl and wanted to further her education. She was tutoring her in…ahm…historical matters and such.” I gulped at that innocuous version of events, but it would be folly to reveal every card in my hand.

“So what do you believe?”

I looked around. The garden paths were deserted, and the bare bushes provided no cover for spies. Still, the back of my neck crawled as if we were being observed. The windows of the hulking palace were shut tight against the February chill. No human figures were evident, but that didn’t mean there weren’t eyes peering through a slit in the drapery. I turned down a path that directed us away from the building, then told Lenci about the theft of my letters and my conviction that Gemma’s murderer was someone from the Villa Fabiani.

Lenci’s brain worked quickly. “That someone wants Sertori to think you killed Gemma.”

I nodded gravely. “It would be most instructive to know who sent the note pointing him toward old Benelli.”

“I saw it. It was signed ‘a concerned citizen.’”

“The paper, the writing itself—do you recall anything about those?”

The gravel crunched beneath our feet. Lenci appeared deep in thought, with chin lowered and hands clasped behind his back. The gears of my own brain were grinding as well. Who had sent that damned note? Fabiani? Rossobelli? The men who attacked Benito? Or some faceless villain that I’d not even considered?

“Well,” Lenci finally responded, “the paper didn’t carry a letterhead, if that’s what you mean.”

“Just describe it as best you can.”

“It was common notepaper. The words were written in a running hand, no blotches.”

“Composed by a person of higher learning?”

“Santa Maria, the questions you ask—I don’t know.” He rubbed his forehead. “The language wasn’t particularly fancy. Actually, it reminded me of those letters written by clerks who set up at markets to read or write for folks who’ve had no schooling.”

As I bit my lip in thought, a footman trotted up to summon us inside. I steeled myself. It was time to face the man who had set me on this fatal path to Rome.

Once through the door, Lenci headed for the main staircase that rose to bifurcate like a T. A delegation headed by a dark man of military bearing descended toward us. The wide skirt of his coat and the crimson sash that girdled his chest told me he was Spanish. Several other soldiers were sprinkled among the cardinals and bishops who made up the bulk of his retinue. They all appeared slyly gratified, like the cat who has wangled an extra saucer of cream from a stingy master.

Lenci turned right at the top of the stairs, but the footman stopped him. “
Scusi
, Signori. You are wanted in Cardinal Montorio’s suite.”

Leaning close, Lenci covered his mouth and whispered, “Zio Antonio had planned to dazzle you by holding court in the main salon. I wonder what happened?” We mounted the opposite staircase and started down the long corridor to the family wing.

We heard the uproar before we had gone twenty paces. “No, no. Put that down this minute. You vandals—stop—” An agonized wail followed.

“That’s Zio Stefano.” Lenci broke into a run. I was right on his heels.

At the doorway, we plowed into a footman packing a glass case that hit the floor with a shattering crash. Its contents, a preserved species of fox, broke into several pieces. I kicked the head from under my feet, and it went bouncing along the corridor like a
bocce
ball.

The man ran for a broom; we entered the suite and pressed ourselves against a folding screen painted with Venetian landmarks. Servants were streaming through the open door of Stefano Montorio’s workroom, carrying a variety of brass instruments, sealed cases, bellows, and oddly shaped glass vessels. The cardinal himself, stumbling on the hem of his scarlet cassock, ran back and forth, emitting squeaks of despair and filling his arms with the treasures that still remained. With expressionless faces, the footmen pried them from his grasp and continued the despoliation of his workroom.

When the apparatus that had shown me the louse was borne away, the cardinal threw himself on a gilded stool with a pitiful moan. He hugged his belly and rocked from one rounded hip to the other. “Antonio, for pity’s sake. Leave me my microscope.” His fleshy jowls ran with combined tears and sweat. “Just the one instrument, I beg you. Where is the harm?”

Antonio Montorio had been gazing silently out the window. He turned and strode over to his brother. The senator’s face was more lined than I remembered, but he was as elegantly attired as before. His traveling clothes had been replaced with a suit of bottle green silk over a flowered waistcoat worked in gold thread. His lace was exquisite.

I realized that I had never seen the two brothers together. Though their features were similar, the contrast was striking. Where the senator displayed an implacable bearing, with flashing eyes and a hard mouth, the cardinal was a blubbering lump of craven flesh who couldn’t raise the resources to save his own possessions. I’d been a fool to think that he might have been able to arrange Alessandro’s escape.

The senator addressed his brother with the verve of a dramatic orator. “I now see that I should have come to Rome much sooner. People have been talking. There are rumors of impious activities at the Palazzo Venezia—experiments in natural philosophy that dishonor God’s work.”

The cardinal straightened. “There is nothing impious in studying the laws of the knowable universe.”

“Theologians teach otherwise,” his brother shot back.

“The church fathers cling to hopelessly outdated theories. When they preach that demons of the air create thunder and lightning, they ignore the evidence of electrical sparks jumping from cloud to cloud. When they speak of miracles effecting—”

“All that isn’t worth a soldo.” The senator was adamant. “I’m bleeding our family coffers dry to see you elected head of the Church, not president of some chin-wagging scientific society.” He stabbed his finger through the air. “You know as well as I do, Venice is on her last legs. Trade has nearly perished for lack of custom, and our neighbors are peddling their treasures from palaces that are crumbling at the foundation. The majority of common citizens exist only by grace of the public dole. A Venetian papacy could turn all that around, send wealth flowing back to our city.” He spread his arms wide. “Now, who do you suppose would be first in line to receive that silver and gold?”

The cardinal maintained a sullen silence.

The senator swiveled his head toward Abate Lenci. “Tell me who.”

“The house of Montorio, Zio.”

“Exactly.” The senator turned back to his brother. “And you would risk this so you can muddle about with your toys? It’s outright rebellion against your family and your government. I won’t allow it. In fact, I absolutely forbid you to read, discuss, or perform any more natural philosophy under this roof.”

“You’re taking the journals, too? What about my notes?” The cardinal half rose from his seat, stretching a hand toward a footman with a bundle of stained, tattered notebooks under each arm. “Please Antonio, those are written in my own hand, with great labor.”

In reply, the senator grabbed one of the books, crossed the room, and threw it in the fire. The thin papers caught flame and curled into ash almost immediately.

Cardinal Montorio sank down and pressed his hands to his mouth. His eyes had widened to tea saucers. A whispery whine escaped his lattice of fingers: “I could be more careful—set up a workroom outside of the palazzo, in a warehouse somewhere—do my experimentations in absolute secrecy.”

His brother braced his hands on the firemantel and stared down at the creeping ashes. He shook his head. “Your experimentations are over, Stefano.”

“But Antonio—I deserve a tiny place of my own—I do—and no one would be the wiser.”

The senator moved to tower over the cardinal. “You are spouting nonsense and you know it. Secrecy doesn’t exist in Rome.”

I had to raise my eyebrows at that and saw Lenci do the same.

Cardinal Montorio dropped his hands, gripped the edges of his stool, and raised his chin. His eyes narrowed to slits. “You’ll be sorry, brother.” His voice was husky with rage. “You may have won today, but there are other battles to come.”

Senator Montorio snorted. He consulted a watch on a short, heavy chain and seemed to notice me for the first time. Waving a hand, he moved toward the corridor. “Come with me, Tito. I’ll take your report elsewhere.”

I drew a deep breath and started after him. Lenci followed, but halted when Senator Montorio commanded, “See that your uncle pulls himself together. I’ll need him later—in good form and wearing a fresh cassock.”