3 - Cruel Music (27 page)

“What happened?”

The cardinal’s smile disappeared. “Ferdinando liked his women highborn and lewd. He dallied with my mother for a time, and when he got bored, the Marchese Fabiani found him an accommodating noblewoman from your country. Unfortunately, this Venetian presented the grand prince with the French disease, and the Marchese Fabiani was never forgiven. My mother and her husband were banished to the country, where he sank into indolence and drink. When my mother wasn’t consoling herself with Desio, she nearly fretted herself to death about my future. Lacking prospects to link me to a wealthier family by marriage, Mama finally sold off the last of our decent land to buy a small bishopric for me.”

“In Rome?”

“No, Milan. It was quite nice. They have a wonderful opera there, and I would have been happy to stay forever. But it wasn’t good enough for Mama. She was determined that I rise to the top. She saw our chance when it appeared that another of her old lovers would be elevated to the papacy.”

“Pope Clement,” I observed.

He nodded. “He was Archbishop Lorenzo Corsini when Mama first knew him. I think she always had a feeling that he would go far—much farther than her husband. That’s why she insisted that my name also be Lorenzo.”

“And when Corsini became pope?”

“Mama was intent on coming to Rome, but not with an overfed, slovenly embarrassment of a husband. She went to her faithful Desio with a request. Being the kindest of men, he refused many times. But when Mama wants something…” He shook his head, shrugging. “She finally wore him down. One day he accompanied her husband on a ride—the Marchese Fabiani never came back—I don’t know exactly what Desio did and don’t want to.”

“Perhaps it was simply an accident.”

“No. Desio was eaten up with guilt and grief.” The cardinal took a deep breath. “He hanged himself from a rafter in the stables a month later. I was desolated when I heard.”

“Yet you left Milan and came to Rome to secure your fortune.”

“I took no satisfaction in the way things turned out.”

“You could have refused.”

“Refuse Mama? You can’t imagine how she was—it would have been easier to stem a flood tide. And then, it may sound strange, but I couldn’t stand the thought that my true father, my beloved Desio, had sacrificed himself for nothing. I fell in line with Mama’s plan, but everything I’ve done since has been dedicated to Desio’s memory.”

“Eminence…” I shuffled uneasily. “Your mother would make Lucrezia Borgia blush.”

He widened his eyes. “Do you see why I have no problem believing that Mama strangled Gemma? I left the maid in the pavilion while I went to get her purse of money. The sum she asked for showed a shocking lack of imagination. It would have been worth ten times that amount to send her packing. When I returned, Gemma had been strangled with Mama’s scarf and Rossobelli stood over her, about to lose his head and wake the villa.”

I thought for a moment. I still wasn’t sure that he hadn’t killed Gemma, but Fabiani’s tale had led me to see him in a new light. In some ways, the seemingly all-powerful cardinal was trapped as surely as I was. “What do we do now?” I asked.

“Do?”

“We’ve come to something of an impasse. The painting of Desio Caporale is not on my person, and circumstances make it too dangerous for me to retrieve it. I can only hope you will believe me when I tell you where it can be found.”

“And when it comes to getting Cardinal Montorio elected, I can only give you my word that I will deliver my votes for Venice.” He sent me a sweet smile. “It looks like we’ll have to trust each other.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

The rain had come, showers of it, driven slantwise by the tireless north wind. I was trying to reach Liya’s to pass the rest of the night, but Gussie’s rooms were closer. When I staggered up to his lodging house, I was so cold, wet, and weary I could barely take another step.

I hardly wanted to call attention to myself by waking Gussie’s landlady, so I searched the slick flagstones for some small pebbles to throw on his windowpanes. My stratagem worked, and Gussie soon came down to unlatch the door.

“By Jove, Tito, where have you been? I thought I’d see you yesterday or the day before. And what a state you’ve got yourself into. Your cloak is sodden clear through.”

I let Gussie bundle me upstairs and fuss over me like a mother cat with a wayward kitten. I fended off his questions until I was warm and dry in a dressing gown that was several inches wider than I was. Then I inquired about food.

“I’ve only this bread. If I’d known you were going to show up…” He handed me the end of a day-old loaf.

I stuffed a hunk in my mouth without ceremony and looked around the room as I chewed. On his desk, Gussie had several candles burning over a half-finished letter. Dirty clothing, sketches, and used crockery were spread throughout the shadows.

I pointed toward the desk. “Are you writing Annetta?” I mumbled between chunks of bread.

He nodded, not looking at me.

“Any news from home?”

“You would know if you had called for me as you promised.” Now that he thought I was safe, Gussie had turned sulky.

“You have my heartfelt apology. If I could have spared a moment, I would have been here.”

“You don’t fool me. If you had only a moment, it would belong to a certain Jewess.” Gussie smiled ruefully, but at least he smiled. He threw himself into the chair behind the desk. “I had my last letter from Annetta several days ago, but it was old news. All the pilgrims on the roads between here and Venice must have slowed the post. She wrote that Alessandro was well—still keeping mum about the Turkish business.”

I nodded, swallowing the last of the bread.

“I’ve been waiting to send an answer until I could learn what is going on with you. What shall I tell her?” Gussie dipped his quill in the inkwell and let it hover above the paper. “Did you manage to discover the color of Pope Clement’s eyes before he died?”

I clapped my hands to my cheeks. Fabiani had taken me to the Quirinal only four days ago, but it seemed like a lifetime had passed. Sliding my fingers down to my chin, I said, “I haven’t seen you since then?”

He shook his head.

“What have you been doing?” I asked.

“Going about the city, doing a watercolor whenever I spot something interesting.” He gestured toward sketches that covered the chest and sat on the windowsill. “More importantly, what have you been doing?”

I sighed. “I doubt that your ink will hold out.”

He raised an eyebrow and dipped his quill again. “Let’s see, shall we?”

I began with my adventure in the pope’s bed chamber, which Gussie dutifully transcribed for Annetta. When I reached the part about Magistrate Sertori questioning Benelli, Gussie put his quill down. And when I told him that Antonio Montorio thought Alessandro would make an inspiring martyr, my brother-in-law sprang from his chair.

“Damn that devil. We can’t let this go on. I’ll get back to Venice. I’ll demand to see the doge…I’ll speak to the British Envoy…” Gussie dropped to his knees, retrieved his case from under the bed, and transferred it to the top.

“No, I’m the one who’ll be going, Gussie.” I grabbed his shoulders and spun him round to face me. “Listen.”

By the time I finished explaining the latest developments, Gussie had steadied himself. “We must leave at dawn,” he said, as he began to pack slowly and deliberately.

I stayed his hands. “I can’t let you come with me. If I am caught, they’ll arrest you, too—for aiding a fugitive. You must follow at a safe distance. And not alone, I hope.”

His worried blue eyes opened a little wider. “You want me to bring Liya and her son.”

“Will you do that for me? And make arrangements for Benito? If I know that he is safe and you three are on the road behind me, it will give me the strength to face whatever I must.”

He peered at me for a long moment. “Of course,” he answered staunchly. “But…” A doubting tone crept into his voice. “…what if Liya won’t come with me?”

“She will.”

Gussie’s expression remained dubious.

“On my way out of the city, I’ll stop by the cookshop and tell her what is going on. I couldn’t bear to set off without seeing her again, anyway.”

“No.” Gussie chewed at a knuckle. “We want you on the streets as little as possible. At first light, I’ll go get Liya and bring her here. We’ll perfect our plans together.”

I would have sworn that sleep was impossible. I intended merely to close my eyes and give some thought to the uncertain journey ahead, but the moment Gussie covered me with a blanket, I was dead to the world. I awoke to find my brother-in-law gone and his room barely visible in the fuzzy, gray light.

I swung my feet to the floor. Gussie had brushed the mud from my boots and hung my breeches and jacket before the smoldering stove. They were still slightly damp, but they would serve. I lit a candle and dressed quickly, picturing Liya’s look of surprise when Gussie appeared at the cookshop.

The minutes passed. My stomach rumbled. I rummaged among shelves and cabinets and found a forgotten, withered apple. It tasted as good as Eve’s must have. What time was it? I consulted my watch, only to find that I had neglected to wind it. I threw the window drape back, scattering some of Gussie’s sketches. A light mist had taken the place of the rain. The windows across the way were still dark and the street was quiet. It must be very early.

As I retrieved the watercolors from the floor, I saw that Gussie had been sketching all over the city. In turn, I admired a saucy angel that graced the Ponte Sant’Angelo, a tidy courtyard with a clipped box hedge, a swarthy woman plaiting garlic bulbs into a wreath, and some porters with bulging muscles rolling casks down a ramp and heaving them onto a cart.

I started to lay the papers aside, but something prodded me to take a closer look at the last sketch.

I pressed my shoulder into the corner of the window to make the most of the weak light. The sketch clearly showed men loading olive oil casks. Gussie had taken care with the image on the sign over the loading ramp: an olive branch heavy with fat golden olives. But that wasn’t what sent my heart racing. Gussie’s practiced brush had also sketched the cart’s driver with precision, right down to his floppy blue cap, studded gloves, and turned-up jaw. Blood pounded in my ears. This was the cart and driver that the beggar had described—the cart that had crushed Benito like he was no more than a gutter rat.

As was his habit, Gussie had noted the sketch’s date and location in the upper left-hand corner. In a lather of rage, with no thought in my mind but revenge, I ripped the sketch in half, shot out of Gussie’s lodgings, and launched myself into the fog.

***

Via Verdi near the Porto Ripetta. I didn’t know the street, but the port that supplied Rome with goods from the countryside should be easy to find. It lay north; all I had to do was cross the Tiber and keep the river on my left shoulder. In my haste, I had neglected to don cloak or hat, so I slunk through the mist with my hair clumping about my cheeks and my chin on my chest. I threw in a subtle stagger now and then. If any constables noticed me, I wanted them to see a man heading home after a night’s debauch, not a castrato singer avoiding the law.

By the time I reached the Ripetta, a pale sun was thinning the mist and the day’s business had begun. A flock of boats with high curved prows and single masts bobbed at the quay, almost like a little Venice. Porters were unloading casks and crates from wheeled vehicles and transferring them to the jetty to be loaded onto boats. I stopped several draymen before I was directed to the Via Verdi.

I recognized the warehouse immediately. It seemed to be the only oil business among establishments that dealt in corn and wheat. Its stone façade was cracked and discolored, and though the rest of the street was coming to life, its ramp was not in use.

Approaching cautiously, I ducked under a slanting portico littered with broken casks and other debris. A street door fashioned of heavy planks was wide enough to admit an average-sized cart. The door sagged on its hinges. I pushed it open a few inches, stopping when it creaked like a dungeon gate.

I glimpsed a vast interior stacked with oil casks, then stepped back. I didn’t know what to do. The walk through the mist had cooled my white-hot anger to a temperature that allowed reflection. I could barely contemplate leaving Rome while Benito’s attackers went on as if the evil deed had never occurred. But I obviously couldn’t alert the authorities. Had I thought I was going to leap on the man with the blue cap and pummel him to a pulp? Alessandro could have carried that off, but not I. Heaving a sigh, I realized it had been a mistake to come to the warehouse at all.

I turned to go, but I was too late. The man in the blue cap blocked my path, his dark eyes narrowed and his lantern jaw pushed forward in a scowl. His sinewy hands gripped a stout leather bludgeon. I knew him only from the beggar’s description and Gussie’s sketch, but he knew me by sight. He pronounced my name in a raspy growl.

A wave of panic rose in my chest. I feinted to my left, and then sprang to my right, hoping to throw him off balance, but his big body moved with the grace of a dancer. The blow struck my forehead and sent me staggering back. A rainbow flash rent the air, then darkness.

***

A splash of cold water startled me to consciousness. Lying on my side, atop some lumpy sacks smelling of garlic, I coughed and spat only to have another bucketful flung in my face.

I was in a small storeroom. Blue Cap squatted beside me. He poked my chest with his bludgeon, and I realized that my wrists were tied behind my back. “He’s awake,” he called to someone moving around behind me. “We don’t need no more water.”

I endeavored to move my feet and found those restrained as well. A wave of dizziness engulfed me as the white stockings and buckled shoes of the water flinger came into view. I raised my gaze to his face. Hope exploded in one delirious heartbeat, then the truth struck me with the force of Blue Cap’s club.

“Guido,” I whispered.

The footman looked down on me with a nasty smile. “Not very clever of you to show up here. If I were you, I’d be putting as much distance between myself and Magistrate Sertori as possible. What are you doing at my uncle’s place, anyway? Did Benito revive enough to tell you that I took your letters?”

“No.” I thought quickly. “Benito is a little better, but the doctor says he will never be able to remember what happened.”

“Then what brought you here?” Guido asked.

I glanced at Blue Cap. More lies designed to protect the people I loved sprang to my lips. “People in the street where Benito was struck described the cart and driver. I’ve been on the watch ever since. I spotted a likely cart one day and followed it here, but there were a lot of porters milling around. I returned to have it out with the driver in private.”

Guido squatted and nudged Blue Cap aside. The footman produced a dagger and caught the tip in the notch of my jaw. “Now, why don’t I believe that?”

Barely moving my mouth, I answered, “I’m telling you how I found this place. I can’t help it if you don’t believe me. Why did you want my letters, anyway?”

“You know that as well as I do.”

He was right. Guido had played his valet role as skillfully as the most seasoned actor, but now that he had dropped the respectful servant’s persona, he looked every inch a killer.

“You were trying to find out what I knew about Gemma’s murder.”

“Of course. Once Gemma was found with the marchesa’s scarf around her neck, I thought the old bat would finally be packed off to the madhouse where she belongs…but the cardinal surprised me. He decided to keep things quiet and involve you. I had to know what was going on.”

“At Benito’s expense,” I replied grimly.

Guido released the dagger and sank back on one knee. He lowered his eyes. “I didn’t want things to end up that way.”

I thought I saw real regret in his face, but it passed with a flicker.

“Why did you kill Gemma?” I asked boldly. “Surely it was not just to get rid of a troublesome old lady.”

“You really don’t know?”

I shook my head.

Guido snorted. “You’re all the same. We servants live right under your noses, but we might as well be invisible unless we’re shoving food at you or wiping your precious asses.”

“You’re lumping me in with aristocrats like Cardinal Fabiani and Prince Pompetti?” Even in my dire situation, Guido’s point of view amazed me.

“You wear silk coats, don’t you? And full dress wigs made of real hair? And you have a trunkful of snuffboxes and silver buckles and other such gewgaws.” He and Blue Cap shared a
nod, setting anyone above their station squarely in the enemy camp.

Another truth burrowed its way through the pounding in my head. Despite my bonds, I managed to raise up on one elbow. “You’re a thief! Some of my things have gone missing. The marchesa’s, too. Is that why you killed Gemma—because she found you out?”

Guido laughed outright at that. “Gemma was partners with us. She took things the old lady wouldn’t miss. And stood guard when need be.”

I nodded. Everything was becoming clear. “Because of the marchesa’s wandering, Gemma could find an excuse to be idling almost anywhere…by a tapestry that leads to a concealed staircase, in the pavilion that has a secret entrance to the old aqueduct…” I remembered the carefully clipped path from the aqueduct to the river. “It’s all so very convenient. You pack your booty through the tunnel and a boat picks it up. Under cover of night, of course. Where do you store it until it can be sold, I wonder.”

Guido’s quick glance toward the casks stacked along the back wall of the storeroom wasn’t lost on me.