Whispers of Vivaldi

by Beverle Graves Myers

  “Tedi?”

  “Tedi aroused my suspicion when she didn’t leave Venice as she promised. Who knows what secrets Torani had shared with her? I gave her enough gold to travel anywhere she fancied, but, like you, she felt compelled to play bloodhound. Even then, if she’d kept to her love nest with Caprioli, I would have stayed my hand, but when I chanced to see her flit through the theater corridor, closely followed by you…” His jaw clenched. “Tedi signed her death warrant the moment she decided to confide in you.”

  “Why didn’t you kill me at the same time?” I was beginning to realize that the Savio had no idea I’d witnessed Grillo and Beatrice’s lovemaking in the card room. The little minx hadn’t told him, and she was anxious to have me dead so that I couldn’t.

  He shrugged. “I had discharged my only pistol and didn’t relish hand-to-hand combat. Besides, Tedi had not yet vouchsafed her precious secret.” He continued matter-of-factly, frowning. “I actually considered letting you live—until you trailed my wife and daughter across the piazza the other day. You frightened Beatrice. She’s convinced me that you’ll never stop harassing us in your efforts to get to the bottom of Torani’s death.”

  Beatrice! The cursed name echoed inside my head. I took a hard gulp. Torani, Tedi, and the hapless Balbi—all had been sacrificed on the altar of the Savio’s bloodthirsty, undisciplined Beatrice. The tyrant Beatrice, I had once called her in jest. If I had only realized.

  The girl’s insistent voice tore through the space between us. “Papa, what are you waiting for? You promised to get rid of Tito.”

  “She’s right,” the Savio whispered. “It’s time. May God receive your soul, Signore.” With a heavy sigh, he lowered the stiletto to the level of my liver, screwed his eyes shut, and braced himself for a mortal thrust.

  I shifted my weight to the left, pulled the spoke up with my right hand, and pushed down with my left shoulder.

  The wheel turned. A faint creaking came through the deck boards. The Savio hesitated. Then his eyes popped open, and he cocked his head like a dog that hears his master’s whistle in the distance. Metal grated on metal, followed by clanking chains. The entire ship shuddered.

  “No!” The Savio realized that I had set his beloved shipwreck into motion. Fear blazed on his aristocratic countenance.

  Beatrice saw what was happening, too. She cried, “Get off the boat, Papa!”

  “You idiot!” The Savio lunged toward me with the stiletto. Groaning in agony, I quickly swiveled my hips and drew my knees up into my chest. The blade buried itself in the wooden column supporting the wheel.

  The Savio didn’t attempt to remove the stiletto. He whirled quickly. On shaky legs, he crossed the rising deck, heading for the stalwart mast that could provide a handhold once the ship split in two.

  He didn’t make it. The quivering jerk that halted the deck’s upward progress knocked him off his feet directly over Giuseppe Balbi’s corpse. In the Savio’s fierce efforts to rise, his cloak became entangled with the dead violinist’s limbs. I heard his strangled curses as the machinery ground on and a dark void opened between the two halves of the deck. Somehow he managed to extricate himself from Balbi’s lifeless embrace just as the flat deck began to cant inexorably toward a steep angle.

  I watched as the murderous aristocrat began to roll. With each notch of the gears, he picked up speed. In vain, he clutched at the air, beat his heels against the smooth boards.

  As he slid under the polished wood of the deck railing, the Savio made one last frantic grab. His crabbed fingers missed the railing by a hair. His white-stockinged legs shot out into thin air, and he went over the edge, followed closely by his victim’s body.

  From stage level came a splintering, shattering thud. Then another.

  I was left hanging from the sharply tilting wheel. In the space of moments, that instrument of captivity had become my salvation. My last fear was Beatrice. The girl must have witnessed it all, but I’d heard no wailing screams. Where was she?

  I held my breath, listening intently. There were murmurs in the wings. What? Of a sudden, the murmurs became louder, turning into happy, chattering voices that I knew well. Aldo’s clipped tones and Gussie’s British-laced Italian, then a girlish treble calling, “Isis. Isis.”

  That had to be little Isabella!

  Merciful Heaven, Gussie had fetched Aldo, and they’d come to the theater for the promised kitten. I had totally forgotten, but the eager five-year-old hadn’t.

  Then a different voice rang out. Its commanding note stifled the gaiety of the others. Was that Andrea? What would Messer Grande be doing at the theater?

  I filled my lungs to shout a warning. I didn’t know if the Savio was dead or merely stunned, and then there was Beatrice. I’d be amazed if she’d made her way out of the theater. No, that pampered tyrant would be on the move and out for my blood. And somewhere there was a pistol. And a stiletto.

  Though my midsection burned with pain, I managed to shout, “Watch out for the girl!”

  Steps sounded at the back of the ship—someone was climbing the ramp. I shut my eyes. Totally vulnerable, sagging on the wheel, at the utter end of my strength, I just couldn’t bear to look.

  “Tito!”

  My eyelids flew open. A red-robed Andrea half-skidded, half-stumbled across the canted deck and braced himself with both hands on either side of my head.

  That welcome sight gave me enough energy to ask, “How…how did you find me?”

  He grinned. “I finally recalled the Savio’s full name. The late Savio! You may be relieved to learn that His Excellency Arcangelo Michele Passoni has broken his neck, and that his grieving daughter is being guarded by Aldo.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Every bone and muscle ached, but my heart brimmed with joy. One day had passed and I lay in our chamber at home. A fresh breeze blew through the open balcony door, sunlight made shifting patterns on the stuccoed walls, and the people I loved best surrounded my bed.

  “He’s awake,” Liya announced as she bent to stroke my cheek and kiss my forehead. I gave an involuntary sigh as her petal-soft hair and the familiar scent of orange blossoms wrapped me in a loving cocoon.

  On the other side of the bed, Annetta slumped on a stool with Gussie’s arm encircling her shoulders. My sister had been weeping—she clutched a damp square of linen in her hand—but now a brilliant smile broke over her face. She reached out to pat the blankets. “Tito, thank God, we’ve been so worried. You lost a lot of blood.”

  Ouch! Yes! I struggled to poke a finger beneath the bulky bandage over my liver. Besides the throbbing pain, the damnable thing itched.

  “Leave it alone, my love.” Liya trapped my probing hand between her smooth palms and gently rested it on her bodice. “You must keep still or you’ll start bleeding again.”

  At the foot of the bed, Benito waited with a steaming basin and a white towel draped over his arm. “Shall I bath your forehead again, Master?” His voice seemed reedy and hollow. Distant. I blinked my eyes and his form wavered.

  “Master?” Ah, it stilled.

  “Not now,” I managed to croak out.

  Then I noticed the taller figure at the foot of the bed. Messer Grande—Andrea—with his red robe slung carelessly over one shoulder. “The Savio!” I cried, raising my head a fraction. “He killed Maestro Torani…and Tedi…and…” I trailed off on a wave of dizziness. My head sank to the pillow. Liya’s hands tightened around mine.

  “I know, Tito,” Andrea replied in a soothing tone. “I know everything. Don’t trouble yourself.”

  “But he was…the Archangel Michael.” I was determined to speak my piece. “Franco didn’t send the tarot cards to call my attention to Angeletto. He—and Signora Passoni—were prodding me to investigate the Savio.” I groaned, not just in pain. “I knew the nobleman’s Christian name; his wife had used it in my presence several times. I j
ust never thought of the man in such informal terms. To me, he was always the Savio or Signor Passoni. If I’d only understood the cards’ message, Tedi might still be alive.”

  The chief constable arranged his features in an inscrutable mask. He spoke with unusual emphasis. “My friend, don’t reproach yourself. It took me quite a while to put it together, too. Once I did, Giovanna Passoni admitted that she feared the Savio had killed Torani. Through the cards delivered by Franco, she was trying to send you a hint without openly accusing her husband.”

  “She could have made her hint a little more obvious,” I complained. Or I could have been a little smarter. I shook my head, then wished I hadn’t. “What about Beatrice?” I asked with a sigh.

  Gussie cleared his throat. “We peeled her off the body of her dead father. She was babbling unreservedly—one minute threatening to kill you, the next deploring her father’s mania to keep the family from disgrace.”

  Andrea took up the story. “The Savio was not only determined to protect his daughter’s good name, but also to avoid scrutiny that might bring his wife’s illegitimate liaison with Vivaldi to light. He wanted Torani’s wagging tongue silenced for good.”

  I shook my head. “If the Savio was aware of the opera’s true authorship, why did he allow me to mount The False Duke in the first place?”

  Andrea shrugged. “I believe he discovered the truth after he’d given permission. Exactly how is something neither Beatrice nor her mother has been able to tell me.”

  “Where is the girl, now?” I asked.

  “In the care of her mother,” Andrea replied. “But Signora Passoni is making plans to dispatch her daughter to a convent—Santa Maria della Croce.”

  He’d named a cloistered institution on one of the more secluded lagoon islands. I’d seen it only once, from afar, rising from the glassy lagoon like a brick-work fortress. While I tried to imagine the nuns taming Beatrice Passoni’s undisciplined passions—a monumental task, to be sure—I felt my eyelids growing heavy. Beatrice would have no escape, no freedom as her mother had enjoyed at the Pieta. It would be a life sentence. Presently, I felt Liya’s warm lips touch my forehead and her hands tucking the bedclothes up around my neck. Barely aware, I sank once more into healing sleep.

  ***

  A week passed before I finally had my confrontation with Angeletto. I met the singer and Maria Luisa—I could think of this twin by no other name—on the stage where I had nearly met my end. The cursed ship had been dismantled, and a limp, unpainted canvas hung from the flies.

  “You’re not firing me?” Angeletto, dressed in the street clothing of a modish young blade, regarded me with astonishment.

  I shook my head. I was now the Teatro San Marco’s permanent artistic director. The Senate had taken its vote on the matter of Venice’s state theater. When this august body had considered Lorenzo Caprioli’s hand in the opening night riot, as well as his dirty deal with the late Savio, support for the Teatro San Marco had been renewed by a comfortable majority. My appointment was nearly unanimous.

  My first task had been to cancel The False Duke and send Niccolo Rocatti on his way. Not happily, I admit. I had turned the problem of the purloined opera over in my mind for some time. Out of concern for the San Marco’s reputation and after extracting Rocatti’s solemn promise that any further claim to The False Duke would never pass his lips, I finally decided to consign Vivaldi’s score back to where its true composer had left it—in deep, anonymous obscurity.

  Armed with his Pieta masters’ letters of recommendation, Rocatti quickly found work teaching violin at a small conservatorio in Geneva. He asked Oriana Foscari to accompany him as his wife. To the surprise of no one except poor Niccolo, the greedy songbird refused him. I trusted the humbled man to keep his promise to me—rather, I trusted his mother to see that he kept it. After her husband had come so close to cutting out my liver, Giovanna Passoni felt she owed me a favor.

  My second task was censuring Angeletto and Maria Luisa over Benito’s revelation. I called the pair to the theater, empty of everyone else besides Liya and Aldo, and laid the facts out in detail. Once I’d finished, there was a long, uncomfortable silence. Then Angeletto’s shoulders began to shake, and great, racking sobs took possession of the soprano’s frame.

  Tears of relief.

  It seemed that both twins were thoroughly sick of their dual masquerade. Six years of deception. Six years of gnawing worry at being found out. They actually seemed relieved that they could meet the world as themselves. The astonishment came when I offered to hire Angeletto to sing as a woman. Why not? We needed a new prima donna, and Venice’s curiosity over the switch was bound to plump up ticket sales. “Do you accept?” I asked the woman in male dress.

  “Well, I don’t know.…Do you really think I could pull it off?” Angeletto wiped her eyes with her fingers, then bit her lips. “I suppose I would have to take a new stage name.”

  I shrugged, smiling. “That’s up to you.” For the past few days, I’d felt unusually alive, as if a fresh breeze blew over the waters and stones of Venice, a breeze from a future land where men could sing as natural men and women would be welcome on any stage.

  “I’ll do it!” Angeletto said.

  Her twin’s hand shot out to grasp her elbow. “Not so fast!” He stared at me over steel spectacles. “Will the terms remain the same?”

  I’d anticipated this question. I shook my head. “I simply cannot pay a female soprano the same wages as a castrato,” I said. “But I can offer the same pay that Oriana Foscari receives—plus ten percent.”

  The twins eyed each other. “Mama will be furious,” Maria Luisa muttered.

  “I don’t care,” Angeletto burst out. “I want to sing.”

  Maria Luisa’s mouth set in a firm line. Unspoken messages passed between them.

  Again I asked, “Do you wish to perform at the San Marco? Yes or no?”

  They both turned to me. In unison they replied, “We accept.”

  Once the twins had departed, Liya and Aldo drifted onstage, Liya from the backstage studios and Aldo from his cubbyhole in the wings. My wife’s arms were full of silks and satins and lengths of spangles. Propelled by that new, fresh breeze, I had hired Liya to take charge of the San Marco’s wigs and headdresses. Without her powers of divination, she needed new scope for her restless talents. Truly, I saw no way in which her employment could diminish my role, either in our household or at the theater.

  We were both stepping onto new paths. Together we would prevail.

  “Did Angeletto agree to stay?” Liya asked, her pretty head cocked to one side.

  I hesitated before answering. My gaze had strayed to the shadowy auditorium: the tiers of boxes that would soon overflow with a full complement of patrons, the pit that would teem with hooting gondoliers, the Doge’s official box that would no longer be empty and dark, mocking the performers straining their tonsils to please. I turned triumphantly to my wife.

  “The Teatro San Marco has a new prima donna,” I announced. “All I have to do is find an opera worthy of her voice—something completely different—something dazzling.”

  Did I hear Aldo take a sharp breath from where he hovered downstage?

  “I don’t like the sound of that!” My wife drew her chin back, not completely in jest. “Isn’t that how this all started in the first place?”

  “Don’t worry, my love. This time I will be more careful. I will unearth the perfect piece by a reputable composer. We will have a great triumph.”

  Laughing, Liya headed back to her workroom, but I paced the boards, plotting and planning. I jumped when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  The forgotten stage manager had crept up on his felt-soled boots.

  “Aldo,” I said, clapping my hands on his shoulders. “This is the start of a new era for the San Marco. We’ll make beautiful music here.”

  He gave
me a wide smile. “Yes, Maestro Amato, I believe we will.”

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