Now the ferry was slipping past surf-scoured volcanic cliffs and into a small harbor. A row of crumbling houses, stuccoed yellow and red, crowded the quay, hillsides rising steeply behind them. The ferry maneuvered into port, and a single car and a scattering of passengers got off. Almost before D'Agosta's feet were on firm ground, it was backing out again and heading to its next stop, the island of Elba.
"We have four hours before the ferry returns on its homeward swing." Pendergast pulled out a little piece of paper, scrutinized it. "Lady Viola Maskelene, Via Saracino, 19. Let's hope we find la signorina at home."
He set off down the quay toward a bus stop, D'Agosta at his side. Within moments, an old orange bus wheezed into view, struggled to turn around in the lone narrow street, then opened its doors. They boarded; the doors creaked shut; and the bus began groaning and wheezing its way back up the frighteningly steep slope that seemed to rise straight out of the foaming sea.
In five minutes, they were in the village at the far end of the road. The doors creaked open again and they descended. An ancient peach-colored church sat on one side, a tobacconist on the other. Cobbled lanes ran off at odd angles, too narrow to admit a car. A giant, ruined castle, completely overgrown with prickly pears, dominated the headland before them. Behind the village mounted a series of empty, scrub-covered mountains.
"Charming," said Pendergast. He pointed at a street sign, carved on an old marble plaque and cemented into the wall of a building, reading Via Saracino. "This way, Sergeant."
They walked down a lane between small whitewashed houses, the numbers mounting slowly. Soon the town ended and the lane turned to dirt, bounded by stone walls enclosing garden plots of small lemon trees and microscopic vineyards. The air carried the scent of citrus. The lane made a sharp curve, and there—at the edge of the cliff, all by itself—stood a neat stone house shaded by bougainvillea, overlooking the blue immensity of the Mediterranean.
Pendergast slipped down the path, entered the patio, and knocked on the door.
Silence.
"C'è nessuno?" he called.
The wind sighed through the rosemary bushes, carrying the fragrance of the sea with it.
D'Agosta looked around. "There's someone over there," he said. "A man, digging." He nodded toward a small, terraced vineyard a hundred yards away, where a figure was turning earth with a spade. The man was wearing a battered straw hat, old canvas pants, and a rough shirt unbuttoned partway down the front. Seeing them, the person straightened up.
"Correction: a woman digging." Pendergast set off down the path with a vigorous step. Reaching the vineyard, they stepped gingerly through clods of freshly turned earth. The woman watched them approach, leaning on her shovel.
Pendergast paused to offer the woman his hand, giving his usual little half-bow. In response, she removed her straw hat, shook out a mass of dark glossy hair, and took the hand.
D'Agosta froze. This is no middle-aged woman.
She was stunningly beautiful, tall, athletic, and slender, with spirited hazel eyes, high cheekbones, skin tanned and freckled from the sun, nose still flaring from the effort of digging.
After a moment, he realized Pendergast, after having bowed, had straightened again but seemed rooted to the spot, still holding her hand, saying nothing but looking into her eyes. The woman appeared to be doing the same. There was a moment of utter stillness. D'Agosta wondered if they had known each other before—it almost seemed as if they recognized each other.
"I am Aloysius Pendergast," Pendergast said after a long moment.
"I'm Viola Maskelene," she replied in a rich, warm English accent.
As they released each other's hand, D'Agosta realized Pendergast had uncharacteristically forgotten to introduce him. "And I'm Sergeant Vincent D'Agosta, Southampton Police."
The woman turned to him, as if noticing him for the first time. But the smile she gave him was full of warmth. "Welcome to Capraia, Sergeant."
Another awkward silence. D'Agosta glanced at Pendergast. He had a most uncharacteristic look of surprise on his face, as if somebody had just dropped a scoop of ice cream down his back. What was going on?
"Well," said Lady Maskelene with another smile, "I assume you're here to see me, Mr. Pendergast?"
"Yes," he said hastily. "Yes, we are. It concerns—"
She held up her finger. "A hot vineyard is no place to have a civilized conversation. Let's go back to my house and enjoy something cool on the terrazza, shall we?"
"Yes, of course."
She smiled again: a dazzling, dimpled smile. "Follow me." She set off across the field, her big boots clomping through the clods of earth. The terrazza was shaded by a pergola draped with wisteria, and bordered by blooming rosemary and miniature lemon trees. It was like being perched on the edge of the known world, the cliffs dropping away to an infinity of blue, stretching to the horizon and merging imperceptibly with the sky. The expanse was broken by a single, tiny black reef, about a mile offshore, which only served to increase the sense of distance, of infinity.
Lady Maskelene seated them around an old tiled table, in battered wooden chairs, and then disappeared into the house. A minute later she returned with a wine bottle without a label, filled with a pale amber liquid; some glasses; a bottle of olive oil; and a battered clay platter heaped with thick pieces of rough-cut bread. She set down the glasses and, moving around the table, filled them with white wine. As she passed D'Agosta his glass, he caught her faint scent, a perfume of grapevines, earth, and the sea.
Pendergast took a sip. "Is it yours, Lady Maskelene?"
"Yes. The olive oil is mine also. There's something marvelously satisfying about working your own piece of ground."
"Complimenti." Pendergast took another sip, dipped a piece of the rough bread in a dish of olive oil. "Excellent."
"Thank you."
"Allow me to tell you why we've come, Lady Maskelene."
"No," she said in a low voice, looking not at him, but far out to sea, her hazel eyes almost blue in the intense light, a strange smile on her lips. "Don't spoil this… particular moment just yet."
D'Agosta wondered just what particular moment she might be talking about. The faint sound of surf and the cries of seagulls drifted from the edge of the cliff.
"What an enchanting villa you have here, Lady Maskelene."
She laughed. "A villa it is not—just a simple seaside bungalow. That's why I love it. Here I have my books, my music, my vines, my olive trees—and the sea. What more could you ask for?"
"You mentioned music. Do you play an instrument?"
A hesitation. "The violin."
Now we're getting somewhere, thought D'Agosta. As usual, Pendergast was sliding into the subject sideways.
"You are here year-round?"
"Oh, no. I'd get bored. I'm not that much of a recluse."
"Where do you spend the rest of your time?"
"I lead a rather decadent life. Fall in Rome, December in Luxor, at the Winter Palace."
"Egypt? That's a curious place to spend the winter."
"I'm directing a small dig in the Valley of the Nobles."
"You're an archaeologist, then?"
"An Egyptologist and philologist. There's a difference, you know—we study a great deal more than dirt, pots, and bones. We've been excavating the tomb of a Nineteenth Dynasty scribe, full of fascinating hieratic inscriptions. Of course, the tomb was looted in antiquity, but fortunately all the looters wanted were the gold and gems. They left the scrolls and inscriptions intact. We found the scribe himself in his sarcophagus, holding a bundle of mysterious scrolls full of magical formulas which we have yet to unroll and translate. They're exceedingly delicate."
"Fascinating."
"And then, come spring, I go to Cornwall, the family place."
"Spring, in England?"
She laughed. "I love mud. And freezing rain. And sprawling on a fur rug in front of a roaring fire reading a good book. How about you, Mr. Pendergast? What do you love?"
T
he question seemed to take Pendergast by surprise, and he covered his confusion with a sip of wine. "I love this wine of yours. Fresh, simple, unpretentious."
"It's made from malvasia vines brought to the island almost four thousand years ago by Minoan traders. For me, the flavor somehow evokes history itself, the Minoans crossing the wine-dark sea in trireme ships, bound for distant islands…" She laughed, sweeping her black hair from her face. "I'm an incurable romantic. When I was a child, I wanted to grow up to be Odysseus." She looked at Pendergast. "And you? When you were a child, what did you want to be?"
"A great white hunter."
She laughed. "What a curious ambition! And did you become one?"
"In a way. But on a hunt in Tanzania… I discovered quite suddenly that I had lost the taste for it."
More silence. D'Agosta gave up trying to make sense of what tack Pendergast was taking. He sipped the wine with renewed interest. It was very pleasant, if a bit dry. And the bread was fabulous, thick and chewy, the olive oil so fresh it was spicy. He dipped a piece of bread, stuffed it in his mouth, followed with another. He hadn't eaten breakfast and had been a bit too severe with his diet. He glanced surreptitiously at his watch. If Pendergast didn't hurry things up, they'd miss the ferry.
Then, to D'Agosta's surprise, the woman brought the subject up herself.
"Speaking of history, there's quite a lot of that in my own family. You know of my great-grandfather, Luciano Toscanelli?"
"I do."
"He did two things in life exceptionally well: playing the violin and seducing women. He was the Mick Jagger of his age. His groupies were countesses, baronesses, princesses. Sometimes he would have two or three women in a day, and not always at different times " She laughed lightly.
Pendergast cleared his throat, took a piece of bread.
"He had one great love, however, and that was my great-grandmother. The Duchess of Cumberland. He gave her an illegitimate daughter, my grandmother." She paused, looked at Pendergast curiously. "This is why you came, isn't it?"
It took Pendergast a moment to reply. "Yes, it is."
She sighed. "My great-grandfather ended up like so many in the days before penicillin: with a bad dose of venereal disease."
"Lady Maskelene," said Pendergast hastily, "please don't think I have come to pry into your family's private affairs. I really only have one question that needs answering."
"I know what that question is. But first, I want you to know the history of my family."
"There is no need—"
Maskelene blushed, her hand touching the buttons of her shirt. "I want you to know it up front, that's all. Then we won't have to speak of it again."
D'Agosta listened with surprise. I want you to know it up front. Up front of what? Pendergast seemed equally nonplussed. In any case, when he had no answer for this, she began again.
"So my great-grandfather got syphilis. It eventually progressed to the tertiary stage, where the spirochetes attack the brain. His playing changed. It grew bizarre. He gave a concert in Florence where he was pelted by the audience. The family who owned the violin demanded it back. He wouldn't give it up. He fled to escape them and their agents, traveling from city to city, driven by a rising insanity and aided by countless women. The family's agents and private detectives pursued him doggedly—but quietly, because keeping the family name secret was of the utmost importance. My great-grandfather stayed one step ahead. He played in his hotel rooms at night: insane, shocking, even terrifying renderings of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, executed—so the story goes—with enormous technical virtuosity but cold, strange, all wrong. Those who heard him say it was as if the devil himself had taken up the violin."
She paused.
"Go on," said Pendergast gently.
"The family who owned the Stormcloud was very powerful. They were related by blood to some of the royal families of Europe. Even so, they couldn't catch my great-grandfather. They pursued him from one end of Europe to the other. The chase finally ended in the small village of Siusi in the South Tyrol. There, under the peaks of the Dolomites, they cornered him. He was betrayed by a woman, naturally. He escaped out the back of a small albergo and fled into the high mountains with nothing but the violin and the clothes on his back. He ascended the great Sciliar. Do you know it?"
"No," said Pendergast.
"It's a high Alpine plateau wedged between the peaks of the Dolomites, cut by ravines and sheer cliffs. They say it's where the witches once held their black masses. In the summer, a few hardy shepherds graze their flocks there. But this was fall and the Sciliar was deserted. That night it snowed heavily. The next day they found his body, frozen to death, in one of the deserted shepherd's huts. The Stormcloud was gone. There were no tracks in the snow around the hut, no clues. They concluded that on the way up the Sciliar, in the grip of madness, he had flung the violin into the Falls of the Sciliar."
"Is this what you believe?"
"Reluctantly, yes."
Pendergast leaned forward. His normally calm, almost honeyed southern tones had taken on an unusual intensity. "Lady Maskelene, I am here to tell you that the Stormcloud exists."
Her eyes gazed at him steadily. "I've heard that before."
"I will prove it to you."
She continued looking at him with a grave, steady face. Finally she gave a wan smile and shook her head sadly. "I'll believe it when I see it."
"I will get it back. And I will place it in your hands myself."
D'Agosta listened with surprise. He might be wrong, but he was pretty sure Pendergast's aim in coming here wasn't to inform this woman of the violin's existence. Fact was, he felt surprised Pendergast even mentioned it.
She shook her head more vigorously. "There are hundreds of Stormcloud fakes and copies out there. They were churned out by the gross in the late nineteenth century, sold for nine pounds apiece."
"When I bring you the violin, Lady Maskelene—"
"Enough of this 'Lady Maskelene' business. Every time you say that, I think my mother must have stepped into the room. Call me Viola."
"Certainly. Viola."
"That sounds better. And I'll call you Aloysius."
"Of course."
"What an unusual funny name, though. Did your mother read a lot of Russian novels?"
"Unusual names are a tradition in my family."
Viola laughed. "Just as musical names were in mine. Now tell me about the Stormcloud. Where in the world did you find it? If you did really find it, that is."
"I'll tell you the whole story when I bring it to you. You'll play it—and then you'll know."
"It is too much to hope for. Still, I should love to hear it before I die."
"It would also clear your family name."
Maskelene laughed, waved her hand. "What rot. I hate being called Lady Maskelene, if you want to know the truth. Titles, family honor—that's nineteenth-century rubbish."
"Honor is never out of date."
She looked at Pendergast curiously. "You're a rather old-fashioned sort, aren't you?"
"I don't pay much attention to current fashions, if that's what you mean."
She looked his black suit up and down with an amused smile. "No, I suppose you don't. I rather like that."
Again Pendergast looked nonplussed.
"Well"—she stood up, her brown eyes catching the light off the water, a smile dimpling her face—"whether you find the violin or not, come back anyway and tell me about it. Will you?"
"Nothing would please me more."
"Good. That's settled."
Pendergast looked at her gravely. "Which brings me to the point of my visit."
"The big question. Ah." She smiled. "Go ahead."
"What is the name of that powerful family that once owned the Stormcloud?"
"I can do better than give you a mere answer." She reached into her pocket, removed an envelope, and laid it before Pendergast. In a lovely copperplate hand was written, Dr. Aloysius X. L. Pendergast.
Pendergast looked at it, his face draining of color. "Where did you get this?"
"Yesterday, the current Count Fosco—for that was the family that once owned the violin—paid me a surprise visit. Surprise is hardly the word—I was bowled over. He said you'd be coming, that you were friends, and that he wanted me to give you this."
Pendergast reached down and slowly picked up the envelope. D'Agosta watched as he slid his finger under the flap, tore it open, and pulled out a card, on which was written in the same generous, flowing hand:
Isidor Ottavio Baldassare Fosco,
Count of the Holy Roman Empire,
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Quincunx,
Perpetual Arch-Master of the Rosicrucian Masons of Mesopotamia,
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, etc…
desires the pleasure of your company at his family seat,
Castel Fosco,
Sunday, November 4
Castel Fosco
Greve in Chianti
Firenze
Pendergast looked sharply at D'Agosta and then back at Lady Maskelene. "This man is no friend. He's extremely dangerous."
"What? That fat, charming old count?" She laughed, but the laughter died when she saw the expression on his face.
"He's the one who has the violin."
She stared. "It would be his, anyway—wouldn't it? I mean, if it were found."
"He brutally murdered at least four people to get it."
"Oh, my God—"
"Don't say anything to anyone about this. You'll be safe here, on Capraia. He would have killed you already if he thought it was necessary."
She stared back. "You're frightening me."
"Yes, and I'm sorry, but sometimes it's good to be afraid. It will be over in two or three days. Please be careful, Viola. Just stay here and do nothing until I return with the violin."
For a moment, she did not reply. Then she stirred. "You must go. You'll miss the ferry."
Pendergast took her hand. They stood quite still, looking at each other, saying nothing. Then Pendergast turned and quickly walked through the gate and down the trail.
D'Agosta leaned against the fantail of the ferry, watching the island dissolve on the horizon in much the same way it had appeared: with a sense of expectancy, of a fresh beginning. Pendergast stood beside him. Since they had left the small house on the bluff, the agent hadn't said a word. He stared back over the churning wake, apparently lost in thought.
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