The Devil in Music (27 page)

and
tortuously, giving the garden a labyrinthine quality wholly Italian.

Carlo
added, smiling, "If we'd taken this walk before I acquired the
villa, it would have been much more perilous. It used to be full of
little traps set by Achille Delborgo, who owned the villa some two
centuries ago. There were several spots where the pressure of a foot
would cause concealed jets to spray water on the person's legs. And
there's a wonderfully frightening trompe-l'oeil effect in the
grottos, underneath the caves at the north end of the garden."

"I
should like to see that," said Julian.

Carlo
bowed. "Allow me to take you there."

They
made their way north as directly as the twisting paths would allow.
Presently Julian said, "Your servant seems rather out of the
common."

Was
it Julian's imagination, or did Carlo stiffen momentarily? "Yes,
I suppose he is. I'm so used to him, I don't notice."

"How
did you come to engage him?"

"It
was the merest chance. I told you how I went to Milan shortly before
Lodovico died, in order to sell some property on the sly. I needed a
servant to take with me, but I'd greatly reduced my domestic staff,
and I was reluctant to deprive my wife and children of any of the
servants we had left. At about that time, Guido came seeking work,
as itinerant peasants are apt to do. He agreed to accompany me to
Milan in exchange for little more than his keep. We rubbed along
well together, so I took him back with me to Parma."

"His
circumstances seem to have improved since then," observed
Julian, thinking of Guido's fine clothes and gold earrings.

"As
have mine, thank God and the Madonna," said Carlo.

"How
did he come to be so far from Naples?"

"I
don't know. He's never said much about his past, and I'm not of a
prying disposition."

Unlike
some of us, Julian inferred wryly. "I wondered if perhaps he
found it awkward to return to Naples in March of 1821,"

"People
have had their suspicions about that. But he's never given me any
cause to think he had anything to do with the revolution there."

"I
thought, since it was suppressed at about that time "

"Quite
so. But I understood from Guido that he'd been absent from Naples
for many years."

"Did
he have any references?"

"No.
But that didn't concern me, because I originally thought our
association would be very brief. And by the time I decided to keep

him
on, I was satisfied with him and didn't think to ask him for a
character."

"He
seems rather insubordinate."

"I
daresay he does, to an outsider. But that's just his way."
Carlo looked straight ahead, his face set. "In important
matters, he's never failed me."

Julian
acknowledged to himself that some successful master-servant
relationships had incongruous beginnings. He himself had taken as
his valet a young urchin he had hauled before a magistrate for
stealing his watch. But could it be merely a coincidence that Carlo
a notorious liberal and opponent of the Austrians had engaged a
Neapolitan servant to accompany him to Milan, just when the revolt in
Naples was inspiring uprisings in Piedmont and Lombardy? Had Carlo
and Guido served as links between the Neapolitan Carbonari and
Lombard conspirators?

Julian
and Carlo had reached the lake shore north of the villa. The
promontory loomed up before them, with Castello Malvezzi baring its
double-pronged teeth at the summit. A few minutes' walk brought them
to the foot of the crag. There was no path to the caves, but a trail
of trampled grass and exposed earth showed the way.

The
cave mouth was narrow and pointed, as if some giant had slit the base
of the crag with a knife. Scarlet creeper spilling across the
entrance added to the impression of an open wound. Carlo led Julian
inside. "This cave is known as the Salon, because it's the
largest the others are little better than rabbit-holes."

Julian
turned slowly about, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness. The
Salon was some thirty feet wide and almost perfectly round, with high
walls of pockmarked stone. In the centre of the packed earth floor
was a trapdoor in the form of a padlocked iron grating. There was
also a little marble pool, its rectangular basin hollowed out of the
ground and its back, some three feet high, set into the cave wall. A
nozzle protruded from the mouth of a grotesque face, but no water
emerged, and the basin contained nothing but grit and dead leaves.

"There
used to be a pipe running down to the lake to feed this pool,"
said Carlo. "That was in the time of Achille Delborgo, who as I
told you was fond of water tricks. It was he who built the grottos
beneath this cave. Before his time, wine had been stored in the cave
itself, where it was vulnerable to thieves. The lake was a lawless
place in those days swarming with pirates and mercenary soldiers.
They would hide their boats on the other side of the crag and climb
over the rocks at its base to the cave mouth. So Achille had grottos
dug

under
the cave and used them as wine cellars. They still serve that
purpose, though nowadays no one bothers to keep the trapdoor locked
when the owner is in residence."

He
drew up the trapdoor, which moaned faintly on its rusty hinges. A
long ladder led down into near-darkness. Carlo waved his hand for
Julian to precede him.

What
most struck Julian as he backed down the ladder was the silence. The
breeze, the birdsong, the mournful plashing of the lake, were all
stilled. The smells of the living world grass, flowers, fish were
left behind as well. He might have been descending to the realm of
the dead, like Aeneas, or Orpheus.

He
felt firm ground under his feet and stepped away from the ladder. All
at once he seemed to be under water; even the faint light was bluish
green. He was in an oval room about fifteen feet long, its floor,
walls, and low, vaulted ceiling covered with mosaics of undersea
life. It was their vivid hues that gave the light filtering down
from the cave its uncanny colour.

Carlo
joined him. "You can see that Achille built far more than a
wine cellar! There really are wine racks, though you can just make
them out along the walls."

"Yes,
I remember Orfeo and Tonio broke a wine bottle when they fought
here."

"I'd
forgotten about that." Carlo smiled indulgently. "I
expect they came down here for a tipple on the sly, and got into a
row while they were in their cups. Now then: if you'll permit me,
I'll do the honours of the place. We ought to have a lantern, to get
the full effect. But we can always return another time."

He
led Julian to one end of the room, where the wall gave way to a dark,
low-ceilinged passage. "There's another grotto here, but
without a lantern you'll hardly be able to see it at all. It hasn't
any source of daylight from above. But as it's much like this room,
you aren't missing a great deal. Now I'll show you Achille
Delborgo's joke."

They
turned about and crossed to the opposite end of the grotto. Here was
another passage, barely high enough for a man to stand upright. Carlo
waved Julian inside.

Julian
had taken no more than a few steps when a dark figure sprang up
before him. He halted, then cautiously extended his walking-stick.
It tapped against glass. "A mirror."

"Yes,"
chuckled Carlo. "Achille used to bring guests down here and
show them the two grotto rooms, then send them into this passage,
telling them there was a third grotto. But in reality the passage

is
blocked off, with a mirror at the end, so that anyone entering seems
to see someone coming out at him. At night, by torchlight, and in a
more credulous age, it must have been quite frightening."

Julian
examined the mirror. It was full-length, hanging on pegs driven into
a wall of hard, seasoned wood.

"The
grottos weren't much used for entertaining after Achille's death,"
Carlo went on. "Sinister legends grew up around them: it's said
that some erring Delborgo wife was imprisoned here and left to
starve, and boatmen claim they can still hear her screams at night
when they round the promontory. The local peasants give the place a
wide berth, and servants who come to fetch wine cross themselves and
say a prayer before entering."

The
two men retraced their steps to the principal grotto room and the
ladder to the upper world. Carlo stood back to let Julian ascend.
But Julian was gazing thoughtfully around him. "Signer Come,
would you be good enough to go up and wait for me outside the cave?
I shan't keep you more than a minute or two."

"But
why?"

"I
should like to try an experiment."

"As
you wish."

Carlo
climbed the ladder and disappeared through the narrow opening in the
grotto ceiling. For a time his body blocked off the light from the
trapdoor above, throwing the grotto into chilling darkness. Then the
light returned. Julian waited another half-minute, then called out
as loudly as he could, "Signor Come! Signor Conte!"

His
cry reverberated against the walls and the low, vaulted ceiling, like
a live thing trying to escape. He waited a few heartbeats, then
ascended the ladder and emerged from the cave. His hand went to his
eyes. The sunshine was dizzying, unreal, as if he had spent a
lifetime underground.

Carlo
looked at him enquiringly.

"Did
you hear me call out?" asked Julian.

"No."

"You
heard nothing at all?"

"I
didn't even know you'd called out till you told me just now."
Carlo searched his face. "What was this in aid of?"

"Musical
knowledge," said Julian lightly. "The march of science. A
possible future career designing opera houses."

Self-indulgence,
chided a voice in his head. You will get yourself into trouble,
Julian Kestrel.

As
he was dressing for dinner late that afternoon, Julian told Dipper
about his visit to the grottos and his conversation with Carlo. "It
whetted my appetite to learn more about Guido."

"I've
been trying to pump him, sir. But he's old for me to be making a pal
of he must be sixty if he's a day. And he's a close file keeps
himself to himself, except to play at dice and cards."

"Then
take up gaming. And let him win, to a modest sum. I'll be your
banker."

"Yes,
sir." Dipper took up a clothes-brush and walked around his
master, brushing his coat. "I did want to tell you, sir: Nina
and me, we was piking around the garden, and we had a confab about
Her Ladyship's trip to Belgirate. It took a long time "

"I
can well imagine," said Julian, who knew a little about Dipper's
strolls with maidservants.

"On
account of the lingo, sir," Dipper clarified patiently. "She
don't patter no English, and I ain't such a dab at Milanese as to
twig all she says, first go. Anyhow, she was with Her Ladyship in
Turin in '21 when the rebels kicked up a combustion. Her Ladyship
lit out for Milan with Nina and two menservants. They travelled out
of twig, in a plain rattler and pr ads

It
did make sense for the marchesa to have left Turin incognito, Julian
thought. Her usual retinue of liveried servants and carriage
blazoned with the Malvezzi crest might have attracted unwelcome
attention from the rebels. But her anonymity would also have made it
difficult for anyone to find her, or to reconstruct her movements
afterward.

"They
pushed off at light mans sir," Dipper went on, "and took
the high pad to Novara. But at mid-day Her Ladyship said she'd heard
there was rebels on the road, and they'd have to change course in
order to tip 'em the double. Nina hadn't heard anything about any
rebels, but she didn't like to ask questions. So they drove like
smoke, and reached Belgirate that same night."

"Why
did they go all the way to Belgirate?"

"Nina
didn't know, sir."

"How
long were they there?"

"All
the next day and night, sir. Then a party of slaveys sent by
Marchese Rinaldo smoked 'em out, and Marchese Rinaldo came that
night, and next morning they all piked back to Milan."

"The
night Rinaldo and the marchesa were in Belgirate: was that the night
of the murder?"