The Black Opera

by Mary Gentle

  Green hills, gold corn, pale castles… The panel closest on his right was a topographic map of the peninsula of the Italian states, hill-shadows defining the mountainous spine. The panel on his left showed a closer map of Naples itself, and the Golfo di Napoli.

  The shaded relief map showed up how very vastly the volcano dominated the area, and how far its foothills extended across the face of the Earth.

  Conrad saw momentarily not the green mountain of Classical history, the landscape-view that defines the city of Naples, but a hollow black scab, tendrils of infection spreading out into the body.

  Cold to the base of his spine, Conrad remembered, On the terrace, the King couldn’t take his eyes from Vesuvius.

  “Sir,” he said. “Do they mean to make us a Tambora?”

  No, surely not; Vesuvius has been dead since the ancient Romans—

  “I think they must.” Ferdinand’s tenor sounded beside him. The King rested his hand on Conrad’s dusty shoulder, not far from where the metal collar had marked his coat. “Look at the Two Sicilies.”

  He moved his other hand, drawing it lightly down the face of the map.

  “Ætna, on island-Sicily, the most restless of mountains.”

  Ferdinand’s finger traced the Aeolian Islands.

  “Here is Vulcano, Vulcan’s Forge. And Stromboli, a volcano reliable enough in its eruptions that men call it ‘the Lighthouse of the Mediterranean.’”

  Enrico Mantenucci shifted lightly on his feet beside Conrad. “As for the whole Tyrrhenean Sea—I lose count of how often ship’s captains report the growth of new volcanic reefs as ‘unknown dangers to shipping.’ From the Straits of Medina up to Marseilles, it’s notorious!”

  Ferdinand pointed to Naples.

  “And mainland Sicily. Even ignoring Mount Vesuvius for one moment—west of us, here in Naples, is the Phlegraean Peninsula, also called the Campi Flegrei and Campi Ardenti: ‘the Burning Fields.’ There are over forty craters, though none mountainous except little Monte Nuovo. My Natural Philosophers speculate that the Burning Fields may ultimately conceal more lava than Vesuvius does.”

  By the map-maker’s art, Conrad saw it as if from the heavens. Sulphur pools and volcanic splits in the Earth ran westward from Naples, past the vent called Solfatara, all the way to the little port of Pozzuoli.

  Every cultured man reads Pliny; every man of a certain class in Naples knows how in AD 79 the mountain Vesuvius erupted in smoke and lightning, and surging flows of clouds that scalded hotter than a furnace. All give a moment’s thought to it; the majority then bury it down deep where it can never trouble them.

  Conrad remembered being a small child in Catania, under the shadow of Mount Ætna. Lulling himself to sleep by watching the bright threads of lava edge down the mountain’s slope… By day, the winding cracks in the black ash gave off smoke and fumes. By night, they were a winding, spitting track of red fire; the red reflecting up into the vapours and illuminating them Hell-coloured.

  He had walked far enough up the mountain as a boy to feel how hot the cracks in the Earth are, and see the slow push of lava. Coming to Naples, he remembered feeling glad that he would live in the shadow of the dormant Vesuvius, rather than grumbling and semi-waking Ætna.

  Well, that didn’t work out.

  Conrad took a step back so that he could survey both maps. Down the mountainous spine of Italy, and then from the Adriatic in the east to the Mediterranean in the west…

  “Tambora’s in Indonesia,” he thought aloud. “Why Europe? Why here?”

  Enrico Mantenucci snorted indelicately, as if Conrad were being dense. “If they could use Church music, then, yes, their geographical location wouldn’t matter. The Mass can take place anywhere!”

  The King restrained the police chief by a raised hand. “Adriano reports they deduced that their Manichaean heresy isn’t suitable for a Sung Mass. Therefore they must use the other form of musicodramma—opera. So as to why Europe? and why here?… Here, because—although there have been notable contributions from the Germans and the French—Italy is the heart of opera. And Napoli is the heart of Italy. Since the Prince’s Men desire the best possible chance of a musicodramma miracle, where else could they come?”

  Conrad can think of composers in Vienna and Paris and St Petersburg who would quarrel with the King’s assessment—but much as he enjoyed his own time in Paris, and how he values the German blood he inherits from his father, he has no intention of arguing with the King. Never argue with any Italian state about the supremacy of their women or their own opera.

  Ferdinand Bourbon-Sicily sighed, clenching and unclenching one fist as if he were unaware of his own tension.

  “And as for why this one of the Two Sicilies—I believe the Prince’s Men aim at us here because, although Ætna is more unstable, we in Naples alone have two volcanoes.”

  Conrad looked wordlessly at innocent paint. At the image of the towering, snow-covered black walls of the crater of Vesuvius. And the sulphur pools and fissures of those Phlegraean Fields that ancient Roman philosophers believed opened down into Hades.

  “The danger is not to the Two Sicilies alone. My Natural Philosophers say that if the Campi Flegrei and Vesuvius suffer a sufficiently large eruption, then that may trigger the other volcanoes—may rip up the bed of the Tyrrhenean Sea as if it were merely the skin on a pan of milk, in one single detonation.”

  Ferdinand brushed points to east, west, north and south on the painted map, as if he drew the Church’s cross over the Two Kingdoms.

  “It could destroy Italy, southern France, half the Mediterranean Sea; Istanbul, the Holy Land, North Africa… before we even think of the besmirched sky. How many ‘years without summers’ might that make?”

  Conrad slammed his mind shut on the frighteningly real visualisation of rock, gas, fire, and air, conspiring in one moment to wipe Naples and the Two Sicilies from the Italian earth. His mouth dry, he jolted out, “But why?”

  The King turned away from the wall maps. “Simply put, signore? Flood and famine and disease cause a greater number of deaths over time—but for sudden mass deaths, I don’t believe humanity yet knows a weapon more violent than the volcano.”

  Conrad sat back down heavily on the Baroque chair that the servants had set out by the map-chest.

  Sitting without permission in the presence of the King is against every rule and custom. Ferdinand Bourbon-Sicily did not rebuke Conrad for ignoring protocol.

  “Sir.” Conrad said it clearly enough to re-establish a respect for royal authority. “Suppose you do know that’s what these Prince’s Men intend to do. That only answers ‘how.’ It says nothing about why they should want such an absolute devastation!”

  Ferdinand Bourbon-Sicily appeared amused. It was not a cruel expression. “The Sicilies lost a scholar in you, Conrad.”

  Enrico Mantenucci thrust another hot coffee at Conrad and briskly took his own seat. “Use that famed atheist mind of yours to speculate, Scalese!”

  Conrad drank down scalding liquid, shakily. “Signore, you’re the Prince’s Man, you tell me!”

  Ferdinand walked back from the maps, leaning his hands on the back of Mantenucci’s chair. “He has you there, Enrico! I suspect this next part is not best handled by Socratic dialogue.”

  “No, sire.” Mantenucci’s lips quirked, under his grey moustache. He glanced apologetically at Conrad. “Very well, let’s say we’re not Prince’s Men… I don’t know what’s keeping Adriano, but I can summarise his reports. What we deplore about the Tambora eruption—the wholesale loss of life—is, to them, the point of what they did. They may be heretics, but throughout all of human history, even heretics have understood the power of making a sacrifice to the Deity.”

  Conrad spluttered.

  Ferdinand cut in. “The ancient Greeks sacrificed a holocaust of bulls; the Jews, lambs; and the Celts burned their human sacrifices alive.”

  The King’s eyes appeared haunted.

  “Even Christians, throughout history,
have sacrificed the innocent to the Devil at a Black Mass, in the hopes that it will be the payment for what they want.”

  Scientific inquiry—or natural bloody-mindedness—reasserted itself. “That may be their belief,” Conrad began.

  “What else powers a miracle except belief?” Enrico Mantenucci folded his arms across his chest. “I throw your own arguments back at you, Signore Conrad. Does it matter who or what the Prince’s Men are, or what they believe in, if the methods they use have been known to work?”

  Conrad could only shake his head in agreement.

  Ferdinand paced a restless few steps on the tiled floor. “They intend to perform a blood sacrifice. Their black opera—”

  “‘Black opera’?” Conrad blurted.

  “—A name I coined, by similarity with the Black Mass.”

  Ferdinand halted, staring into invisible distances.

  “At first we assumed they desired to compel the attention of God. That they intended their ‘sacrifice of innocents’ to rouse the attention of the Creator-God, and so bring his attention back to his world here—”

  “Cazzo!” Caffeine, strain, and the last several hours obliterated any trace of Conrad’s court manners. “Don’t the Prince’s Men believe we exist in the world of an evil Creator? You say their absent God was perfectly aware of human pain when He created this universe—He had the power to omit it, but chose not to! Who in their right minds could want to resurrect an evil God!”

  Ferdinand straightened, his poise that of a man militarily trained since youth.

  Conrad glared back, waiting for a rebuke.

  The King gave him a look of satisfaction.

  “I see I chose the right man to challenge them on their own terms. Yes. We failed to think that way because the Creator is of supreme importance to us. The Prince’s Men… their Creator-God is gone, and they’re happy to have it so.”

  Conrad frowned. “What is it they do want?”

  “We were right in assuming that the Prince’s Men believe a blood sacrifice—of sufficient scale—can compel a deity… We mistook which God.”

  The King stepped closer to the map gallery’s closest window. He reached out and slid one sash-window up. Conrad felt his skin prickle with alertness as the live wind of spring blew in.

  Ferdinand said, “What the Prince’s Men plan to do, with their black miracle, is to alter the constraints that have been in place since the Universe was created.”

  The breeze blew the gauze curtains out and around Ferdinand, almost obscuring the intent gaze he fixed on Conrad.

  “They want their Prince of this World released from those chains, to rule the world as it should be—with all the senseless pain healed, and the waste restored and made good. This is the future they believe in, beyond the flames of their blood sacrifice… They will use their black opera to summon up the Prince of the World.

  “And, by their miracle—they will free Him, to reign over us all.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “In short,” Enrico Mantenucci grunted, “they want to set their Devil up as our God!”

  Conrad rose without seeking permission. His thoughts whirled, and physical movement eased that. He paced the length of the gallery and back. The open window allowed a warm wind through; a welcome contact from the world outside.

  His mind fought against accepting the idea of such a miracle—or so he thought. When he listened to his thoughts, he heard them chattering: There isn’t a god—there might be a god if they succeed—what would the world be like if someone added a god to it now?

  “Of course,” Mantenucci added grumpily, “as their heretical ideas are false, all they’ll succeed in doing is killing a million men, if we’re lucky. If we’re unlucky, they’ll succeed in raising up the real Devil.”

  Conrad felt his pulse hammer in his ears. “Theology is bunkum! As to ‘miracles’… I’m willing to allow Tambora could have been man-caused.”

  Therefore, so might Vesuvius be, one day.

  Conrad drew a breath and let it out, tension finding resolution in a sudden black humour. “After all, it isn’t the first time someone’s had the idea of using a sacrifice to get God’s attention.”

  Enrico Mantenucci raised prompting brows.

  “The Crucifixion?” Conrad pointed out.

  Both the Commendatore and the King developed an identical, absently-shocked, expression. It was wholly familiar to Conrad from other men.

  They’d forgotten what I am. Drifted into assuming that I must share their beliefs, because “everybody does.”

  “I apologise for my levity, sir.”

  “Don’t apologise.” Under Ferdinand’s bourgeois exterior, a sharp humour gleamed. “It’s a quality that will give your opera power to counter theirs.”

  Conrad dropped back into his chair. “It’s truly possible they can alter the world.”

  Mantenucci nodded, slowly. “Yes—but even his majesty’s Natural Philosophers can’t be sure how it would work, or exactly what it would do. It’s the Prince’s Men who have the confidence it’ll do what they want.”

  Ferdinand, hands clasped behind his back, turned away from the windows and the view of the plaza below. “I would suppose that from their point of view, it’s simple enough. If ‘the Prince’ can do miracles to help us, but not to help himself, then Man can likewise bring about a miracle liberate the Prince from the Laws left behind by creation.”

  “Even if the change were only a minor improvement,” Enrico Mantenucci put in. “Say, allowing the Prince of this World to administer justice. The Men would consider that morally preferable to what we have now. No more suffering three month old babies, dead before their time. No lives lived in sickness and crippling injury. If we were Prince’s Men, we might think a Just universe the ideal. The old Greek philosophers did! If suffering can’t be eliminated, then at least undeserved suffering can. Only the criminal, the immoral, and the vicious would suffer. The good would not.”

  Drawn in to something so involving, it took Conrad a full minute to ground himself.

  Very dryly, he said, “That very much depends on who you define as the criminal, the immoral, and the vicious.”

  Mantenucci grinned and applauded, one finger tapping the opposite palm.

  Ferdinand sounded whimsical. “I still hold out for my Machiavellian Prince of this World. He’d be less arbitrary than your Just God—would reward those who strive and succeed, no matter what methods they use, and punish only those who are feckless and lazy. A God of virtù.”

  Caught between his various mother tongues, Conrad appreciated the point. ‘Virtue’ has a moral dimension. Virtù only denotes ability.

  Enrico Mantenucci muttered “Blasphemy!” under his breath, but looked grimly amused.

  “Perhaps,” Ferdinand agreed. “But I think the point is, as we judge from our intelligence, that unless something is done, the Prince’s Men will succeed.”

  “The Prince’s Men are insane!” Conrad muttered.

  Ferdinand sat back, sounding oddly wistful. “Neither mad, nor evil, reportedly. It would be easier if they were.”

  Major Mantenucci sounded grudging. “Sire, for some men, or some acts, I can only use the term wicked.”

  “We must look at this through their eyes. Otherwise we have no hope of defeating them. By all means, gentlemen, speculate.”

  Conrad exhaled, purging tension deliberately from his body. Think of it like a libretto.

  I can’t.

  “Sir—If I see unscientific alterations to the world, that doesn’t mean I’m going to label them ‘miracles’!” Conrad couldn’t help a wry grin. “When people talk about magicking up Satan, I tend to leave the room.”

  Light and shadow swept the gallery in quick succession. Outside the tall windows, clouds raced from the west across the now-higher sun. Conrad shivered at the ghost of the Year Without a Summer and its thousands of deaths.

  Major Mantenucci muttered under his breath, and reached to top up the King’s coffee cup. Conrad sile
ntly took the pot when the police chief relinquished it.

  Ferdinand said, “We may disagree on the nature of God, and whether or not His nature is subject to change by Mankind. But do we agree on this, Conrad? That there is every likelihood that the Prince’s Men can repeat what they did to Mount Tambora, here in the Two Sicilies.”

  Conrad scowled and thrust his fists into his coat pockets, slumping down in his chair. “I want to talk to your Signore Adriano about what he witnessed… I know there have been significant miracles connected with opera in the past. If you’re right, and the Prince’s Men used Tambora as a test—I agree, we can’t leave it to chance that they’ll fail with Vesuvius. But I come into this on the grounds that what we call a ‘miracle’ is something as yet unaccounted for by science, not an expression of the will of a Deity. If I agree that these lunatics can trigger a volcanic eruption, I don’t agree that we’ll find God at the end of it!”

  “With all respect, Signore Conrad, does that matter?” Ferdinand steepled his thumbs and index fingers. His eyes met Conrad’s. “Your business will be the black opera. It will require inhuman excellence on their part, to provoke what they want it to provoke. We must have the counter opera. If you can work without needing to think of the theology—I have no difficulty with that.”

  Conrad clenched and unclenched his fists. “All right, sire, yes.”

  Ferdinand rummaged among the papers and small maps on the map-chest. He selected what Conrad saw was an almanac. The King thumbed through it. “… Adriano reports that the Prince’s Men must choose a dark phase of the moon to give their black opera.”

  Conrad raised his brows. “Very superstitious, sir.”

  Ferdinand put paper in the almanac to mark his place, and put it down. “In fact, my Natural Philosophers confirm the fact. It seems volcanic eruptions tend to occur at that time when the Sun and Moon both pull at the Earth from the same side.”