3 - Cruel Music (25 page)

***

Outside the hospital, thick clouds obscured the late afternoon sun, and a gusty wind sent scraps of straw and paper dancing along the pavement. The scent of rain permeated the air. Despite the looming storm, many people remained out of doors.

A footman approached as I descended the front stairs of the Consolazione. His rust red livery and gray cloak both bore an unusual coat of arms: a pair of frogs, canted, on a shield topped by a spiked crown.

“Signor Amato?” he asked with a brief but respectful bow.

“Yes.”

He handed me a note sealed with a scarlet blob of wax. “Prince Pompetti sends his compliments.”

I waited until the man was well away before breaking the seal. The thin paper rattled in the breeze as I unfolded it. The message was short and to the point:
Don’t forget. I’ll be watching you
.

Laughing without mirth, I held the note aloft and let a gust of wind sweep it away. If he wanted to take me on, Prince Pompetti would have to stand in line, right behind Magistrate Sertori and Antonio Montorio.

Chapter Twenty-five

I slouched into my room at the villa a half hour later. The lamps were lit, and a freshly ironed shirt and my best brocade jacket lay across the bed. Sounds of rummaging came from the dressing room. Guido.

“What are you looking for in there?” I called wearily, craning my neck around the doorway.

“Oh, Signore, there you are!” Guido slammed one side of the wardrobe shut. His eyes bulged in surprise. “I was searching for a fresh neckcloth. All the ones in the bureau drawer are stained.”

“Just make do. This evening, I don’t have to be perfectly turned out. It’s only a small gathering, and I’m sure they’ll be more interested in discussing politics than attending to my music.”

“But, Signore, I can’t send you down looking tatty and shopworn. There are those who say I’ll never make a valet, but I mean to prove them wrong.”

Despite all the worries crowding my mind, I raised a chuckle. “So I’m to be your
chef-d’oeuvre
?”

Guido cocked his head suspiciously. “My what?”

“Your masterpiece.”

A smile cracked his heavy face. “That’s right, Signore.”

“Do what you must, then.”

I left Guido to his labors, shed my day garments, and poured warm water into a china washbasin, all the while plotting my next move. Cardinal Fabiani would be leaving the villa after the reception. I didn’t know his destination, but it couldn’t be the opera. As a demonstration of Rome’s grief, the theaters had been shut down and would remain so until after the pope’s funeral. All that mattered was that the cardinal would be supping elsewhere. After the household staff had been fed, the villa’s kitchens would close down for an early night.

I washed and toweled dry, recalling all the places I had searched for the marchesa’s portrait and considering the possible hiding places that remained. The list of the latter grew longer and longer. Beneath the towel, my shoulders tensed and my stomach fluttered like it used to before my student performances.

“Here, Signore.” Guido took my towel and floated a shirt past my ears.

I stretched my arms through the sleeves, then sought to calm myself by giving him some good news. “Have you seen Benito lately?” I asked. “He’s doing much better today. He asked for you.”

Guido’s fingers trembled as he tied the snow-white neckcloth he had unearthed from the wardrobe. “Really? I haven’t been able to get away for several days. With all the visitors, Rossobelli has put the whole staff on double-duty.” Guido gave the lace a final tweak and stepped back to gauge the effect. His eyes sought mine as he went on haltingly, “I had almost…given up hope…Benito actually said my name?”

“Yes. Nothing else, though. Sister Regina says we must be patient. He will take a long time to mend.”

Guido nodded slowly, face pink and blotchy with emotion. He seemed too overcome to question me further. He must be as enamored as Benito, I thought, struggling to feel magnanimous. After all my manservant had been through, I would hate to see Benito’s heart broken.

“Come,” I said. “Complete your
masterpiece
so I can get to the music room and look over my scores.”

In silence, Guido worked pomade into my hair and brushed it flat. After positioning my wig just so, he reached for the bellows and a box of powder. The open box slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor.

“
Santo cazzo
!” he exclaimed, glaring at the trail of powder. He quickly stepped toward the door and modulated his tone. “A hundred pardons, Signore. I’ll go for a dust pan.”

“No, Guido.” I motioned him back. “I’d rather you left it for now. You can clean up later.”

For someone who professed to take his valeting so seriously, Guido finished me off in haste. It was of little import; my plans for the night would soon dismantle his work. After a quick check in the mirror, I dismissed the footman to his other duties and went downstairs to fulfill mine.

***

Prince Pompetti was as good as his word. In the music room, after the guests had been seated and wine and biscuits had been dispensed, he clapped his eyes on me and followed my every trill and gesture with unwavering gravity. Lady Mary whispered in his ear, tapped his arm with her closed fan, and at least once, I saw the tip of her satin slipper inch over to kick his ankle. All to naught. His gaze never left my face.

Even the harpsichordist noticed the intense scrutiny. When he handed me my second aria, he whispered, “You’ve made quite an impression on Pompetti. Looks like he either wants to hire you away from the cardinal or have you flogged for some indiscretion. You haven’t been making love to his blond Inglesa, have you?”

I took the score with a withering stare and went on with my serenade. As I had thought, most of the guests were drawn from Rome’s aristocratic clans: the Colonna, Orsini, Savelli, and twenty-some others who had been struggling for dominance throughout the centuries. I wondered how many of them also belonged to the Academy of Italia and whether Fabiani knew about the organization that was backing a secret pagan for the pope’s throne.

The cardinal himself was all smiles, moving gracefully from group to group, generous in calling for more refreshment. Several times, Rossobelli appeared at the doorway, provoking short silences and uneasy glances from Fabiani. But when the abate gave a subtle shake of his head, the cardinal turned back to his mingling with renewed cheer.

At the conclusion of the reception, I bowed to tepid applause and retired to my room. I anticipated an anxious vigil of several hours, but I did have a few things to attend to. First, I returned my peruke of powdered curls to its stand. After toweling the pomade from my own hair, I gathered the strands into a black ribbon at the nape of my neck. Then I exchanged my formal clothing for a traveling suit of dark blue broadcloth. A flint, my stiletto, and several other useful items found their places in my pockets. I kicked my white stockings and heeled court shoes onto the pile of dirty clothes that lay where I’d left them earlier. Thick socks and dark boots were what I needed. Tonight, I would become a creature of the shadows.

Once I was attired to my satisfaction, my pent-up energy sought release in pacing. On one of the numerous circuits of my bed chamber, I stumbled on the powder box that Guido had dropped. The aspiring valet must have fallen into Rossobelli’s clutches and not been allowed to return and tidy up.

I headed for the dressing room. Somewhere I’d seen a whisk broom and dust pan—there, on a shelf above my stacked trunks. I returned to the bed chamber and knelt on the royal-blue carpet. The powder looked just like a spill of flour on the dark surface. Rubbing a pinch of the white substance between my fingers, I realized that I had never wondered where this product I used so frequently actually came from. Perhaps hair powder was nothing more than flour, milled very fine, then mixed with scent and a whitening agent. An errant memory flitted through my mind. Someone else had mentioned something about flour recently—flour spilled all over a floor. I had stored that bit of information at the back of my mind, hoping it would be of value one day.

I shifted my weight to a more comfortable position and cast my mind back to several conversations with Rossobelli. Yes! The broom and pan fell from my hands. I remembered who had spilled flour—and where.

I sprang up to rush to the kitchens but stopped myself at the door. Pressing my forehead and splayed palms against the cool wood, I willed myself to take a few deep breaths. It was not yet time.

***

At half past ten, I was hovering in a back corridor on the first floor of the villa. The light was dim, barely illuminating the landing where the kitchen stairs turned a corner. I strained my ears and listened for any signs of activity. All was quiet.

Treading lightly, I scurried down to the landing and, after a pause, to the kitchen level. A wide, red-tiled corridor stretched before me. The servants’ dining hall lay on the left. Its entrance was dark. The cook’s parlor was on the right, almost to the archway that led into the first kitchen. The parlor doorway cast a thin wedge of light across the tiles.

Hugging the wall, I drew equal to the door, which was open only a few inches. I heard the cook’s curt alto melding with another, softer voice. Someone counted in an undertone and made an exclamation of disgust, then the alto cackled and said, “I told you. I took that last trick, so I win.”

“So you did, but I’ll have my revenge. Deal another hand.” Now I recognized the soft voice. The cook and the housekeeper were playing two-hand Tarocchino.

I held my breath, waiting for the unmistakable sound of the shuffle. The cook’s gaze would be trained on the cards riffling through her fingers, and the housekeeper’s too, making sure her friend kept all the cards on the table. There!

I sprinted for the kitchen on tiptoe and recited a silent prayer of thanks when no cries erupted from the cook’s parlor. Most of the vast, low-ceiled kitchen lay in shadow. Beneath an overhanging mantel, the main fireplace was a seething bank of orange pierced with pinpoints of yellow flame and ringed by a moat of gray ashes. Huge copper pans and basins that hung from ceiling hooks reflected the mellow glow. I started when a movement to one side of the fire caught the corner of my eye.

It was one of the kitchen boys, turning over on his pallet, kicking a blanket away. His regular breathing told me he slept like a typical twelve-year-old who had carried fuel and hefted pots all day. A brass band couldn’t have awakened him.

From my earlier searches, I knew where the baking supplies were kept. My target was the capacious flour barrel that supplied the raw material for the villa’s bread and pastries. When I had questioned Rossobelli about how he found the marchesa on the night of Gemma’s murder, the abate said that he had chanced to notice her shawl caught in the larder door and discovered the poor lady in a mess of spilled flour. I only wished that I had remembered the detail of the flour before now.

The larder door wasn’t locked, but the dim light from the banked fire didn’t penetrate its planks. A handy shelf outside the door supplied a lamp. I considered it a sign of good fortune when I managed to light it on the first try. I set my little flame on a marble slab among some cold tarts and tilted the flour barrel’s lid. Using the wooden scoop chained to the rim, I dug down into the cool, soft billows.

Nothing.

I’d have to go deeper, of course. Flour was scooped out many times a day. If the marchesa had buried her treasure near the top, it would have been found already. I noticed several plump sacks piled nearby. The barrel was probably replenished whenever the level sank low enough to accommodate a full sack, thus ensuring that the flour near the bottom had been undisturbed for a long time.

I threw off my coat and pushed up my sleeves and soon discovered that flour is worse than sand for staying where you want it to. Stretching over the rim, barely keeping my nose out of the smooth drifts, I tunneled my fingers along the inside of the oaken staves. Sometimes having a eunuch’s long limbs is an advantage. I found what I sought at about the level of my knees: something flat and solid that had no business in a barrel of flour.

A wooden rectangle anchored the stretched canvas. There was no exterior frame. The painting itself was small: about the width of my arm from wrist to elbow and a bit less in height. I tapped it on the side of the barrel to release the clinging flour and cleaned it further with the cuff of my sleeve.

You could call the thing a portrait, I suppose, but its subject was a horse. A magnificent bay stallion with a pulled mane and bobbed tail. The man who clutched the reins seemed to have found his way onto the canvas only to form a pleasing composition.

Holding the painting as close to the lamp as I dared, I examined the man more closely. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and attired as a groom. Dark brown locks escaped his brimmed cap. Just as in the lover’s eye hidden in the marchesa’s ring, his eyes and prominent brows were also brown. Beneath a pointed nose, his wide mouth appeared about to break into a smile. If I covered the top half of his face with my forefinger, I was staring at Cardinal Fabiani’s nose and mouth.

I turned the canvas over and studied the back side. Here the marchesa had noted names and dates so that she would never forget the love of her life. The groom’s name was Desio Caporale, but his son, Lorenzo, carried the name of Fabiani. Beneath the genealogy, the marchesa had signed her full name with many loops and flourishes. She had added a date, June 21 of last year.

Another line of writing was squeezed in above the junction of the canvas and the stretcher board. I tilted the painting in the feeble light. This writing was in a different hand than the marchesa’s. I squinted and the disconnected block letters suddenly became readable:
On this day, I witnessth—Gemma Farussi.

I exhaled deeply. This was it. Proof that went far beyond a senile woman’s ramblings. Lorenzo Fabiani was the son of a common groom and Gemma Farussi knew it. A word in the right quarter, backed up by the evidence in my hands, and the cardinal would be the laughingstock of Rome. Rude jokes would spring up immediately; dirty songs about him and his mother would circulate round the taverns; journalists would pen bravura essays on the pernicious lies of the Cardinal Padrone; the Fabiani carriage wouldn’t be able to navigate the streets without being pelted by rotten fruit. Like a dish of
gelato
left in the summer sun, the proud cardinal’s power would melt away to nothing.

I had known Gemma for a short two days before she was killed. Like Gussie at his sketching, I had formed only a bare impression of her character. Her strength and ambition stood out in bold relief, but it was my conversations with Abate Lenci and Lady Mary that added hues and shadings. The maid had been desperately in love with Lenci and determined to wed him. Lacking rank, she needed a great sum of money to tempt him to turn his back on his uncles—much more money than could be gained by serving as Fabiani’s eyes and ears in the Pompetti camp.