The woman, perhaps in her mid-thirties, was tall, well-figured and quite beautiful. She had fierce dark eyes and a bounty of glossy black hair that sat high atop her head and also cascaded down around her shoulders. Her beestung lips were bright red. They were spitting rapid-fire words in Italian that Matthew thought would likely redden his ears if he could slow her down enough to decipher them. She wore a dark blue gown with white trim around the collar and a white cloth jacket over her shoulders. Her companion was a smallish man, at least three inches shorter than the woman and delicately-framed. He was dressed in a black suit and waistcoat, had gray hair tied back in a queue with a red ribbon, thin gray brows, a sharp blade of a nose and a look of extreme worry that deepened the lines on his rouged face. As the woman fired her speech at him he took to wringing his hands and looking from side to side as if seeking a way to escape. The three guards had ceased their conversation to nudge each other and grin, and the sleeper at the other table lifted his head a few inches off the wood before his neck weakened and his head thumped back down again.
The woman grabbed at the air as she verbally assaulted her companion, as if pulling forth invisible knives to stab him with. He put a hand over his heart and the other hand to his forehead and staggered under her onslaught as if he might swoon.
Then she caught sight of Matthew watching and her black eyes fixed upon him with a power that he could feel readjust his spine. She pointed a finger at him.
“You!” she shouted, making the earthenware behind the bar tremble on their shelves. “You might have some sense! Do you play an instrument?”
“Pardon?”
“An instrument!” Her hands became fists and rose up to fight the world. “Sono circondato da idioti totali!” she raged. “A musical instrument! Do you play one?”
The Italian she was shrieking wasn’t too far removed from the Latin he knew. He did not consider himself a total idiot, as she evidently did. He said, “Piget me nego.” I regret to say I do not.
She stopped screaming. The silence was as heavy as her accent.
She turned then upon the man, and in his face shouted in English with a force that might have seared the flesh away and sent his gray hair flying off, queue and all.
“How am I expected to sing Proserpina, Daphne, La Fortuna and La Tragedia with no orchestra?” Her voice rose to frightening heights. “It is an insult! It is a comedy! It is utter madness, e un vaiolo su questa intera idea!”
“Oh my God!” Matthew suddenly said, because he’d realized who she was.
She whirled upon him, her eyes ablaze. “Si, you may call for God! Call him down and tell him to bring an orchestra of angels, for that is the only way this damned part will be sung!”
“You,” he said. “You are—”
She threw her head back as if to attack him with her pointed chin. “Alicia Candoleri!” she announced with haughty grace, but he already knew.
Before him stood the kidnapped opera star, and it appeared that if indeed a pirate had taken her as his lover, as the Pin had speculated, the poor bastard had bitten off more woman than he could chew.
Thirty-Three
MADAM Alicia Candoleri circled Matthew’s table like a panther.
When she suddenly stopped next to his chair, she said, “What do you know of me? Eh?”
“I know,” he answered calmly, “that you make every question sound like a demand.”
“You should know I am also a star!”
“In Italy, yes. In London and many other cities, I’m sure. Here…you seem to be only a very loud and abrasive woman in search of an orchestra.”
“Hear how this one speaks to me!” she fired at her ashen-faced companion, who Matthew thought must be her manager. He recalled the Pin had reported that a third member of her travelling party, her makeup girl, had also been taken from the waylaid coach. She snarled at the downtrodden fellow as if she were still addressing Matthew. “Questo deve avere le palle di ottone per andare con la sue orecchie in ottone!”
Matthew caught something about brass balls and brass ears. He said, “I’ll take that as a compliment. Now…would you like to sit down and ease yourself?”
“Ease myself? Ease myself?” The diva’s full lips puckered and her ample bosom swelled, and Matthew was tempted to grab hold of the table’s edge lest he be blown through the nearest wall by this Mediterranean cyclone. But then the bosom’s swell subsided, the lips relaxed from their pucker of passionate rage, the black eyes softened—if just a small bit—and she cocked her head to one side as if to examine him from a different angle. “Who the hell are you?”
“Truly spoken like Proserpina,” he said, knowing that this was another name for the Queen Of Hades, though he had no idea what opera she was singing.
“Si, and I may had better speak the part, rather than try to sing it without an orchestra! What is your name?”
“Matthew Corbett. And you are?” He addressed the besieged manager.
“His name is fango, for getting me into this! In brighter times he was called Giancarlo Di Petri.”
“How do you do?” Matthew said to the man, who looked like a shivering bundle of raw nerves and seemed not to dare answer anything Matthew asked.
“He is simplicimente eccellente!” Madam Candoleri replied. She cast a dark glance at the three guards, who resumed their conversation, and then she pulled a chair back from Matthew’s table and sat down, her legs splayed out in what Matthew thought was more likely the peasant style than that of an opera star. “Whew!” she said. “What a place is this!”
“I just arrived not quite an hour ago.”
“We have been…for the sake of the saints, sit down, Giancarlo!” she instructed, and he promptly sat at another table. “We have been here for eight days,” she continued. “Or is it eight weeks? Madre Maria, I’m going mad!” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you one of them?” She tilted her head in the direction of the guards.
“No. I was brought here much as you were.”
“It was a trickery! Giancarlo, Rosabella and I are greeted at the ship by a host we thought was sent from the Earl of—what is the name of the place?” she asked her manager.
“Canterbury,” he supplied in a high, thin voice.
“The Earl of Canterbury,” she went on, “and then off we go on roads that break the back! And faster and faster the horses run, and I look into the face of the man who has introduced himself as the Earl’s most trusted ambasciatore and I say, ‘Scusami, this banging ’round has made me need to…how do you say?…relieve the water.’ I say, ‘Tell the driver he stop the coach at the next tavern and let me do this, only take a moment,’ and he nods and sits there, and then we go fly past the next tavern! And an inn across the way! So I get a little, you know, upset at this disrespect, and I demand he stop the coach just immediate! And can you imagine what this man says to me?”
“Shut up?” Matthew ventured.
“Esattamente! That is exactly correct! So I say then, stop this coach immediate now! I get so…ohhhh, I get so angry thinking of this I would throw something…so red-wild mad I say I am going to jump out of this coach if it does not stop for me to relieve my water…and do you know what this man dares to say to me, Alicia Candoleri?”
“Go ahead and pee?” Matthew asked.
“Correct again! So you know what I did?”
“I can guess.”
“You better believe it, bambino!” she said, with a crazed grin. “I dropped my skirts like a donna dei campi and I let it go all over that man’s legs! You should’ve heard the holler he let out, I’ll bet Senetta didn’t yell that loudly when he had his balls cut off! So then—then—the man is scarlet in the cheeks and cursing like a sailor boy and sudden he pulls a pistol out of his travel bag! Puts it right in my face and says if Professor Fell didn’t want me he would shoot us all, me first, and that would be fine with him because he says he absolutely positively and supremely despises the opera!” She gave a snort that a bull might’ve envied, and she balled up a
fist and looked for a moment as if she were about to spit on the knuckles in the manner of a backroom brawler. “If I ever see that man again, I will turn him inside out and kick him in the kidneys! A whole day spent with him in that racing coach, and then we reached some forsaken inn out in the country with not a light for mile upon mile and there were other men waiting on us. Then I knew…then I really knew…I was not being taken to perform for the Earl of Canterby.”
“Decidedly not,” said Matthew.
“Barkeep!” the lady shouted, startling the man so badly he dropped a rack of wooden tankards he was in the process of putting up on a shelf, making one hell of a racket. “Do we appear to be as the knots on logs? Bring us three cups of red wine! The stronger the better!”
“Um…I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Matthew advised.
“And why not? I’m thirsty! The only decent thing I’ve found here is the red wine!”
Matthew pondered this. If Madam Candoleri was feeling at all sluggish and mind-fogged, she wasn’t showing it; in fact, though Di Petri was quiet and nervous, he didn’t seem to be drugged either. “When is your performance?” he asked.
“The night after tomorrow, in that little barn they call a theater here.”
Matthew figured Professor Fell had given orders that Madam Candoleri, her manager and her makeup girl not be presented with drugged food or drink until after the performance. He imagined the effects would interfere with the diva’s power of memory and her abilities in general, or perhaps the drug could be modulated to insure varying levels of compliance, or perhaps it just took a few days to show any effect at all. But in eight days Madam Candoleri and the others should be affected in some way, if they were getting even a slight dose. Therefore the barkeep would likely be supplying at least two cups of wine from a more private stock than was commonly given. As for his own cup, Matthew realized he couldn’t hold out very long without eating or drinking.
“What is this problem you have with wine?” Madam Candoleri asked as the keep brought the three cups on a wooden tray. To Matthew all the cups looked exactly alike. When the keep offered the tray to him, Matthew reached a bit further to take the cup just to his left, the one that the lady should have taken. The barkeep made no noise or expression that might have been interpreted as a failure to make sure everyone got the right potion, and so Matthew figured they were either all slightly poisoned with a relatively slow-acting formula or there was nothing in the wine but wine.
“No problem,” he said, and he waited for the barkeep to move away again before he continued. “Do you know anything about Professor Fell?”
“I do not, except that he must be a criminal with big hands.”
“Pardon?”
“I think she means to say, ‘with big plans’,” Di Petri supplied, after he’d sipped delicately at his vino.
“Oh. Yes, I’m sure he does have big plans. You’ve seen him, then, to discuss this performance?”
“I have not. His request came from his piece of mouth.”
“Someone speaking for him,” Di Petri translated.
“I see,” Matthew said. “But I have to say, you’re taking being kidnapped quite well. Why would you want to give a performance for your captor?”
She shrugged. “It is what I do. And we will not be here very long, of this I’m certain. Once the dear Earl who made arrangements for this tour pays the ransom, we will return to our…how you say…programma.”
“Schedule,” said Di Petri.
Matthew took a very tentative taste of the wine. If there was anything in it to addle the brain, he couldn’t detect it. But he realized that even without an added drug, Madam Candoleri’s brain was fogged. No ransom demand was going to be made on her behalf. For whatever reason, Professor Fell had brought her here to this village of walking sleepers and likely had no intention of letting her go.
“If I may,” said Di Petri, asking permission from the diva to speak. She waved a hand to freely release his tongue. “Neither Signora Candoleri nor I have seen this professor person, but…it’s very odd…on the first day we were here, he sent a man to bring Rosabella to him. She went to his house. She said he was very polite. He gave her a piece of vanilla cake and a cup of tea and they talked for a bit.”
Matthew’s interest sharpened. “He wished to speak to the madam’s makeup girl? About what?”
The diva picked up the story, as she could not bear to be off-stage even for a few seconds. “Rosabella said it was…how you say…lunacy. She was in his big house in a room with all his books and his fishy things, and he wanted to know about her life and her growing up. He asked many questions of her that she said made no sense.”
“Such as?” Matthew prompted.
“Her family history, as if that really could matter to him. Questions about her mother and her father…particularly about her mother…and she said he was very interested in knowing things about her cousin Brazio.”
Matthew had been close to taking another taste of the wine, but this name gave him pause. “Brazio Valeriani?”
“Si.” The diva’s black eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Un momento! How do you know this name?”
“I’ve been aware for some time that the professor’s searching for him. I’d guess that Rosabella’s mother is Valeriani’s aunt?”
“Si. What do you mean, the professor’s searching for him? Why?”
“He has something Fell wants,” said Matthew. “What that is, I don’t know.”
“My God!” Di Petri suddenly said, without waiting for permission. His eyes had widened. It was obvious he was an intelligent man, because he’d recognized the truth of the matter. “Do you mean…we’ve been kidnapped simply because this…Professor Fell person is searching for Rosabella’s cousin?”
“Impossibile!” Madam Candoleri began to flare up again to fiery heights. “Such a thing would be utter madness! We were brought here for my ransom, and only that!”
Matthew decided that now was not the time to press the issue. He noted that the trio of guards had begun to listen in. “Whatever the professor’s reasons are,” he said, “I’m sure that once the ransom is paid, you’ll all be on your way.” He felt a twinge of shame at this utter lie, but he’d realized from the quick gleam of fear in the diva’s eyes and the slightest quaver in her voice that she used her anger to mask a surprisingly fragile spirit, and she wore this mask as desperately as William Archer had worn his. She simply had to believe that a ransom demand had been made and the money would soon be delivered.
Di Petri, however, caught Matthew’s eyes over the rim of his winecup, and a communication was sent: I understand what you’re saying, and she does too.
Matthew said to the signora, “I don’t know a lot about the opera, but I look forward to your performance.” He stood up.
She wore a frozen expression. “The music may be supplied by two fiddle players, an accordionist, a girl who bangs the tambourine and a twelve-year-old boy who has had four lessons in blowing the trumpet, but otherwise it will be…how you say…spectacular.”
“Goodnight,” Matthew said to them both. Di Petri attended to his wine and the diva bowed her head the merest fraction of an inch.
Matthew took his lantern, left the Question Mark and stood in the square. The cold wind hissed and whooped around him. The village at this time of night seemed a peaceful place, only a few windows touched by the glow of candles, all the little houses much the same but for small differences in the stonework, no smell or sight of sewage, not a horse fig underfoot. It seemed a world away from the chaotic mess of London, and New York certainly did not lie this untroubled beneath the stars.
Untroubled? Matthew thought. Of course it was an illusion. This entire village was Professor Fell’s mask. It presented him as a kindly ruler interested in the well-being of his subjects, who had all done something to either perturb him or draw his curiosity. This neat and clean prison might be Fell’s idea of mercy, or his laboratory for further experiments on behalf of his enterpr
ises. As for himself, Matthew was sure his days were numbered; he hoped he would still be alive in four days when Madam Candoleri took the stage. After Fell had wrung all the information he wanted from Archer, Albion was a dead man. And what of Berry and Hudson?
He nearly damned Hudson for bringing Berry into this, but he knew full well that Berry had blasted her way into that sea voyage. And here he was torn…he was distressed at her for being here, but obviously she loved him enough to put the terrible lies he’d spoken to her aside and risk life and limb to cross the Atlantic in search of him. Now, with both their deaths imminent, should he remove his own mask and tell her how much he loved her, and—if there was a minister somewhere in the Beautiful Grave—should he ask for her hand so that they might go together to the eternal?
He was sure that would give Professor Fell and Mother Deare quite the tears of sentimental joy, marching them out after the wedding night to chop their heads off in the square, or poison them with the wedding cake, or however Fell wished it to be done.
Matthew was also sure Fell would want to be looking into his eyes when the moment of murder came, and likely both Berry and Hudson would go first to accentuate the agony.
Damn, he thought.
He felt as powerless to alter the future as he was to reach out and throttle the wind. Nevertheless, on this quiet night in this village of drugged sleepers, it was rushing upon him with breakneck speed.
He gathered his cloak around his throat and walked back to the house on Lionfish Street. Wasn’t a lionfish poisonous? He didn’t know.
Inside the house, he found that his bag had been delivered containing the new suits and shirts Mother Deare had purchased for him. Atop the dresser in the bedroom, next to a waterbowl, was laid out a small tin of toothpowder, a few toothpicks, a cake of soap, a couple of fresh white washcloths and a straight razor.
Matthew knew Professor Fell was confident he wouldn’t use the razor on his own throat before he saw Berry and Hudson and got some answers. But it would be nice to shave and clean up.
Freedom of the Mask Page 43