The corridor into which he stepped now had long ago been hacked out of the tufa stone on which the whole of the city was built; it was narrow—hardly wider than Gianni’s shoulders—and he had only inches of headroom. The torchlight sent black, flickering shadows dancing across the walls. Gianni held his breath, straining his ears as he walked. He could hear nothing but his own hissing pulse-beat.
Creeping forward, moving sideways, holding the torch out behind him, he picked his way carefully as the ground began to slope more steeply downward. The stone was damp and slippery, and a sharp smell of mold hung in the air. The tunnel meandered down another few hundred yards, then bent sharply to the right, where a short flight of steps, carved as precisely as if they had been in a cathedral, dropped the level of the tunnel another dozen feet or more.
At the bottom of these steps, Gianni stopped. In front of him, a square of denser black a few feet ahead indicated that some bigger space lay before him. Holding the torch up high, he saw a vast cavern. Its walls soared up twenty, thirty feet, and the floor stretched away from him into blackness; the cave could have held a crowd of a thousand, with room to spare, Gianni thought, panic beginning to lump uncomfortably in his throat.
He pulled a linen kerchief from a pocket in his breeches and, crouching, tucked one corner under a stone. Having thus marked his way out, he walked into the emptiness, looking around him, searching for Carlo. His own shadow lay out to his right, long and black, rippling over the uneven floor as the torchlight bobbed and swagged.
The cavern was empty.
Carlo and the two little girls were nowhere to be seen and the cave was silent, but as Gianni stared around, now holding the torch above his head, he saw the mouths of another three tunnels, leading out of the cavern at the far end.
Which one had Carlo taken?
And where did it lead?
He walked across the cavern, glancing down over and over again at his feet, treading carefully over the rubble and rocks that made up the floor. All he could hear were his own tentative footsteps and the skittering clatter of small lumps of rock, dislodged as he walked.
And then a long, wailing moan sliced out into the air around him.
Gianni froze.
***
Every street Modesto saw teemed with children, and every child he saw was one of the twins; his heart jumped in his chest at each sighting, then plummeted with sickening disappointment. Every person he asked gave the same shrug, the same frowning, apologetic headshake. “No, Signore, I’m so sorry—I’ve seen nothing.” “What do they look like, again, Signore?” “I hope you find them, Signore.”
He began to walk back toward the house in Santa Lucia.
Ilaria was sitting on a stool by the ashes of the untended kitchen fire when he arrived. Her swollen face and tear-blurred eyes gave him the answer to his unspoken question.
He said, “The Signora not back? Nor Signor della Rovere?”
“No one.” Her voice was thick and distorted.
“I’ll go back up to San Tommaso.” Keeping still was unbearable. “See if she’s still there.” He could not stay and wait. Banging back out through the front door, Modesto began to run.
It took him no more than a few thudding moments to reach the other house. The front door was unlocked.
Wheezing a little, he pushed it open. Stepped up into the entrance hall.
Silence.
“Signora?”
Nothing.
“Are you still here?”
Nothing.
He turned to leave.
The faintest sound from upstairs. The softest murmur and a shifting of something along the floor. Hardly more than the rustle of fabric. Modesto ran up the stairs two at a time. The door to the Signora’s former bedchamber was wide open. Holding the door handle, he leaned in—and froze.
She was crumpled on the floor at the side of her bed, her head leaning up against the mattress, and, around where her face was pressed against the brocade covering, a dark stain had soaked out like a poorly executed map. A thin trickle of darkening red ran down her neck, and the top edges of her shift and bodice were discolored. Her eyes were closed.
“Porca Madonna!” he said under his breath. Then, running to her and crouching beside her, pulling her up into his arms, he said, “Signora? Francesca! Francesca—open your eyes! Oh, Christ! Look at me!”
Her head hung back over his arm.
Under her chin was an untidy, ragged-edged wound about the size of his thumbnail; a long cut sliced upward from this, running in front of her ear and up into her hair, which was stiff with dried blood.
“Oh, God—please, no!” Modesto muttered. “Francesca!”
He touched near the edge of the cut with a tentative fingertip. Her skin was warm. Looking down at the red-stained dress, he saw, with a vertiginous swoop of relief in his belly, that her chest was rising and falling. He shook her gently.
“Come on, cara, open your eyes!”
Her mouth opened a little. A soft, wordless noise sounded somewhere in her nose. Her eyes opened. And closed.
Modesto pushed one arm farther around behind Francesca’s shoulders and tucked the other in underneath her knees. Pulling in a breath and holding it, he lifted her, staggering a step backward as he shifted her weight up into his arms. He put her down gently onto her bed.
“What’s happened to you? Who did this?” he muttered, unsure what to do first. “Water,” he said then. “I need water. That cut needs cleaning.”
He ran back down the stairs and into the kitchen. Everything crated and packed in straw. Nothing useful, though—no water, no cloth. Nothing.
“Merda!”
For a moment, he stood irresolute, then ran back upstairs.
“Cara, can you hear me?” he said, softly, crouching down once again at the side of the bed.
Francesca made another soft noise in her nose, and then he saw her run her tongue along her lower lip, which was split and swollen. She opened her eyes.
“Have you found them?” she said in an almost soundless whisper.
“Who did this?” Modesto said, deliberately ignoring the question.
“Have you found them?”
He did not know what to say. “We…we’re still searching. I’ve not seen Signor della Rovere—he might have them.”
She turned her head away from him.
“Who did this to you? What happened?”
There was a long pause. Then she said, so quietly that he had to lean close to her face to hear her, “Michele.”
“Oh, no…no…no. The bloody bastard!”
“Please,” she said then, reaching for his hand.
“What? What is it, cara?”
“Get Luca. I want Luca. Michele said Carlo’s taken them.”
“I don’t know where he is…Signora.” He paused. “Who’s Carlo?”
She ignored his question. “Please, find Luca for me.”
“I don’t want to leave you on your own…”
“Just find him.”
She curled on her side and closed her eyes again. With another nauseous lurch, Modesto looked at the gaping cut around the edge of her face and at her ashen coloring. He took off his doublet and laid it over her shoulders. “I’ll find him, Signora—I’ll be quick.”
He ran down the stairs and left the house, taking care this time to lock the front door.
***
The voice that cried out into the silence of the cave was high pitched—clearly that of a child. Swearing softly to himself, Gianni began to run, stumbling and tripping on the uneven ground, but the noise stopped before he reached the far side. Facing the three tunnel mouths, he stood, irresolute, looking from one entrance to another.
“Oh, God—which one?” he said aloud, his voice sounding flat a
nd deadened in the vastness of the cavern. Holding his breath as he tried to decide, he heard a cough coming from the central tunnel. He started to run, but the flames from his torch streamed out backward and he slowed, holding the light out as far to the side as he could to keep it from catching his hair. The tunnel was narrow and dank, and the knuckles on his outstretched hand caught against projecting lumps of rock as he walked.
Some hundred yards farther on, the tunnel suddenly widened. As Gianni slowed his pace and lowered the torch, there was another cough, and a voice called out, “Who’s there!”
Gianni stopped.
Carlo’s voice said, “I can see your light. Is that you, Cicciano?”
Gianni held his breath. He heard footsteps, and then Carlo’s face appeared, underlit by a small, flickering lantern. Seeing Gianni, he gasped and swore.
Holding his torch high again, Gianni said, “What the hell are you doing down here, Carlo, and where are those children? What have you done with them?”
“None of your business.”
“I mean it, Carlo. Where are they? Come to that—who are they?”
Carlo looked mulish. “Like I said—it’s none of your fucking business.”
Gianni’s right hand balled into a fist and he moved in toward his brother. “You tell me. Who are they?”
“You really want to know who they are?” Eyeing Gianni’s fist, Carlo sounded suddenly defensive. “They belong to that overpriced bitch of Michele’s.”
“I don’t— What?” A wild jumble of images of Francesca flashed into Gianni’s mind. His fingers on her breasts. The taste of honey. The puckered skin of the little scar on her back. And then the picture that had been haunting him for days: his father on his knees on the floor of the sala, with his hands in Francesca’s hair and his mouth on her throat.
Gianni shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why? Why have you brought them down here?” he said.
“Fuck off, Gian! It’s nothing to do with you!”
Dropping the torch, which rolled away across the rock floor, its flame licking out horizontally across the stone, Gianni grabbed Carlo by the neck of his shirt. “Why?” he asked again, both fists pressed up under Carlo’s chin. Carlo’s voice was distorted by the pressure of Gianni’s hands, but Gianni heard his scowling mutter, “Justified retribution.”
Gianni pulled the neck of his brother’s shirt upward, dragging him up onto his toes, and Carlo dropped his little lantern. It landed on the rock floor with a clatter and the flame went out. Gianni pushed Carlo back against the tunnel wall, shoving his brother hard up against the wet tufa. “What do you mean? Where are they? You foul, despicable, disgusting little shit!” He banged Carlo’s head back against the wall on the last word. “I’m ashamed to think you’re my brother.” Another bang. “Where are they?” Bang.
“Fuck off!” Carlo shoved at Gianni’s chest, trying ineffectually to push him away. “Fuck off and leave me alone!”
“Tell me!” Gianni shouted, with another, harder bang. “What have you done with them?”
Carlo kicked out at Gianni, aiming for his groin but catching him on one thigh. Momentarily unbalanced, Gianni let go. As he righted himself, Carlo scrambled away but, grunting with the effort, Gianni threw himself at his brother. He caught him around the waist and together they fell to the ground, where, in scuffling confusion, they rolled across the uneven rock. Taller and stronger than his brother, it took little more than seconds for Gianni to pin Carlo down. With one knee on his brother’s chest, he clutched the neck of Carlo’s shirt in both fists. “Where are those girls, Carlo?” he said through his teeth.
There was a pause, and then Carlo muttered, “They’re in the next tunnel. She cost me all that money, didn’t she? Their bitch of a mother. And Cicciano’s friend said he could…could…get a…good price for—”
Gianni felt a nauseous leap in his guts. He scrambled to his feet, backing away from Carlo as though he had been burned, and then stood staring down at where Carlo lay sprawled on the rock. “Where are they? What have you done? Am I too late?”
Carlo didn’t move. Gianni kicked him. “Where are they?”
Carlo grunted. Scrambled onto all fours. Stood up slowly.
Gianni’s fists were up; he flexed his fingers, re-fisted them. “Go on—where are they?” he said, picking up the still flaming torch and holding it high. Carlo reached for his extinguished lantern and then began to walk back down the tunnel toward the cavern. Gianni followed.
They reentered the cavern. Carlo crossed to the next tunnel entrance. He nodded toward it. “They’re down there.”
“Go on then—show me.” Putting his free hand in the small of his brother’s back, Gianni pushed Carlo, who stumbled over a loose rock and fell onto hands and knees. “Get up!” Gianni said. Carlo pushed himself back up onto his feet. This new tunnel was narrower than the first, and the low roof was a smooth arch. Bending slightly, to avoid hitting his head, Gianni followed Carlo and together they walked along the tunnel as it curved around and down.
A second later, the keening whimper broke out again. It echoed through the tunnel, a sound of terrified despair, raising the hairs on Gianni’s neck and arms. “Oh, God. You bloody bastard, Carlo,” he muttered.
They rounded a final corner, and the tunnel came to a dead end. Gianni pushed past Carlo, held the torch up, and saw the little girls sitting pressed together on the rock floor. Their eyes were wide and black in the torchlight and they had their arms around each other. One of them was crying. Seeing Carlo, though, the weeping stopped; they both scrambled to their feet and shrank as far back as the tunnel would allow, uttering incoherent little sounds of terror.
“You wait back there!” Gianni hissed at his brother, and Carlo stepped backward into the shadows and slid down the wall to squat on his heels. Gianni laid the torch down, crossed to the children, and crouched in front of them. He held out a hand toward them, but they cowered away from him, and their whimpering grew louder.
“I promise I won’t hurt you,” Gianni said softly. “Do you remember me? I met you at Signora Zigolo’s that day. You were playing with beads. I know your mamma—I know where she lives. I’ll take you back to her. You’re quite safe now.”
The girls stopped crying but did not move.
“Has Carlo hurt you?” Gianni asked. “That man. Has he done anything to hurt you?”
Neither child replied or moved. They just stared at him, huge-eyed and silent. Gianni said, “Listen, I’d like to take you back to your mamma now,” he said. “Will you come with me?”
Two brief nods.
“And you.” Gianni turned back to Carlo. “I don’t even know what to think about you, let alone know what to do. God alone knows what Papa will say…”
Carlo said nothing.
Gianni said, “I’m taking these children home now, and we’re taking the torch with us. Come with us, or stay here and make your own way as best you can—to be honest, just now”—Gianni felt his voice quiver in his throat—“I don’t give a two-scudi shit what you do.”
He stood, staring at Carlo for several long seconds. Carlo stared back, swallowing awkwardly, grimacing as though it hurt to do so. Then, gaze still fixed upon Gianni’s face, he got slowly to his feet. Gianni saw the two little girls cower as Carlo stood up.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “He can’t do anything to you now. You’re quite safe.” He took one child by the hand, and she in turn grabbed for her sister. They followed Gianni past Carlo, flattening themselves against the opposite wall of the tunnel as they passed him.
“Wait a moment,” Gianni said. “I’m going to light his lantern for him. Though he doesn’t bloody deserve it.” Picking up the still-burning torch, Gianni crouched down and tried to relight Carlo’s lantern. Twice it simply sputtered and went out, but on the third attempt, he succeeded, and he placed it down on
the floor of the tunnel. It threw a feeble, dirty-yellow light across a few feet of rock.
Gianni looked from the lantern to where Carlo still stood slumped against the wall. One of his eyes was puffed and bruised; his lip was split, and he was holding his head awkwardly over to one side, shoulder hunched. His brother’s usual swaggering insolence had quite gone, Gianni realized; Carlo was small and broken, sagging against the tufa like a bag of damp grain. A faint sensation of sympathy rose in Gianni’s throat, but the little flutter of compassion was quickly drowned as a wave of sickening anger broke over it.
He opened his mouth to say something to Carlo, but then closed it again.
Glancing back to make sure that the lantern he had left was still alight, Gianni held the torch high and then reached out with his free hand toward one of the two children. She took it, and in turn grabbed hold of her sister. Together the three of them made their way back to the tunnel mouth, where Gianni’s linen kerchief was still tucked under its lump of rock. He picked it up, pushed it back into his pocket, and, one behind the other, he and the children walked back up toward the door to the tavern.
Gianni did not allow himself to turn around to see if Carlo was following.
His mind was racing.
Almost unable to believe what he had just discovered, he felt physically sick at the thought of what might lie ahead. He had no idea what to do. Should he report his brother to the authorities? Was he morally obliged to do so? Carlo had abducted Francesca’s children…had intended to hand them over to be sold into…into…God knows what fate. He would have to be punished, Gianni thought, but might such a crime be serious enough to merit burning? Might he hang? Could he, Gianni, really do it? Really hand his brother over to the thuggish and unreliable sbirri? Or—another thought struck him—would it be the Spanish who would mete out whatever form of justice Carlo’s actions deserved? Where would Carlo go now? What would he do? Gianni pictured Carlo, alone with the feeble lantern in the sottosuolo, and his head teemed with painful images.
“Are we nearly there yet?”
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