by Mary Gentle
“Oh yes…” Brigida gave a surprisingly rich chuckle. “I have to forgive my Amazon daughter for falling in love with a male—and tell her that, after all, that’s how she got to be here in the first place…”
“That’s not more than six changed lines between all of you.” Conrad turned to the tall mezzo beside him. “Princess Tayanna’s the one doing all the work. Double aria rondo finale cancelled, in favour of a new aria on the subject of love and forgiveness, that leads into the new sextet.”
“With revised music from our composer…” Sandrine dropped Roberto Capiraso a demure little curtsey, much as she would have done before the morning’s revelations.
The others just still think “he’s our composer,” Conrad reflected, the illumination coming to him suddenly with her expression. But Sandrine actually forgives him. I wonder what she’s done, in her past, that makes her so understanding?
Conrad clasped his hands behind him, feeling cold sweat in his palms.
One by one, the group around the forte-piano fell silent and fixed their attention on him.
They need to believe they can out-do the Prince’s Men with a singer back from the dead; the Prince’s Men with years to prepare; and who knows what other professional singers, what composer, or librettist…
“You’re all professional singers.” Conrad found himself drawn up at attention, as Lieutenant Scalese of the Cacciatore a Cavallo might have stood. He looked from Sandrine to Lorenzo, from Velluti to Estella, JohnJack, Brigida… “We don’t yet know if the way that Leonora sings even works in opera. We do know she’s one voice, you’re six. You can adapt. You’re bel canto singers; you improvise as a matter of course! Use all the coloratura you know. Sing with each other, even where your roles are singing against each other, and it’s going to produce something finer than any individual singer.”
Even Nora? some sceptical part of his mind put in.
He managed to keep the doubt off his face.
Reassuringly loud chatter broke out as he stepped back. Paolo-Isaura had her head together with one of the recitateurs; Conrad guessed there would be multiple copies of the new parts soon. And then she has to brief the orchestra—it’s a good thing the San Carlo musicians are close to the best in Italy!
Conrad bumped against a thin, intractable obstacle. He glanced up to find himself standing beside GianGiacomo Spinelli.
“‘Forgiveness for all’?” JohnJack queried mildly.
“Up to a point. The world is bad enough as it is, without humans making other humans’ lives unbearable.”
“Cynical romantic?” Spinelli appeared to muse. “Romantic cynic—?”
“JohnJack!”
They were interrupted by Paolo ushering them aside and calling the principal singers to the forte-piano.
The voices faltered at first, and then suddenly caught, as tinder catches, going up in a blaze. The first bars of the revised sextet soared in an unashamed anthem, as if it were part of some secular oratorio.
Conrad drew in a breath and forced his attention away.
If I sit and listen, I’ll do nothing, and every word has to match what Roberto is writing—
He made himself turn and go towards the backstage maze, on the route to the upper work-rooms.
Some illumination shivered in his mind, almost ready to coalesce. Some revelation about the nature of this music, this singing, and—
A man stepped directly into his way.
Conrad lost his thought.
He halted, the words to flay the man on his tongue.
“Signore Scalese—”
It was a police officer of the Port district, Conrad realised; whose face he recalled, but not the name.
“—You were expecting a delivery at the dock, signore?”
Conrad flatly stared, his mind too tired for a second to catch up.
“Merda per merda!”
He shot out of the backstage exit of the theatre, barging past Roberto Capiraso and his attendant soldiers without even an apology, and left the San Carlo, heading for the royal dock.
CHAPTER 45
Tullio Rossi followed the dignitaries off the yacht S. Gennaro, looking in his elderly greatcoat and tricorne hat like a guileless servant. “Avoiding any secret police,” he murmured, straight-faced enough that Conrad was instantly reassured about what might have happened on the voyage from Stromboli.
The lackeys, court gentlemen, military escort, and King of the Two Sicilies made a fine display of colour on the quay, greeting his Imperial Majesty the (incognito) Emperor. The stocky figure of the Emperor bowed his greetings, and was given precedence by King Ferdinand as they departed for the Palazzo Reale on the way to an early lunch.
Conrad surreptitiously wrung Tullio’s hand, in case it should be observed how glad he was to have his ‘servant’ back. “You’ll need to dress up if you’re coming inside the Teatro.”
“Nah. My friends will be going up to the royal box with me, to check security, but we’ll go in the back way.”
Tullio indicated by thumb two men in the uniform of Imperial Colonels, wearing the many colourful Orders of his Imperial Majesty.
Conrad recognised one of the Colonels as “Philippe,” whom he had met on Stromboli. And the other—
Conrad’s head whipped round and he stared after the departing King and party.
“We got a message to his Majesty…”
Tullio’s voice was a barely audible undertone.
“…That’s Colonel Étienne wearing the fancy dress as his Emperorship. Won a game of mora. The other Colonel will stay as his aide, and stick with him in the royal box. Never mind waiting for the Sinfonia—I’ve ordered a coach parked outside the stage door, now, and we’ll be gone while Old Squeaky’s still practising his entrance aria!”
“That’s no way to refer to Giambattista Velluti.” Conrad with difficulty kept a straight face. “You’re checking the royal box because…”
“Because the big boss wants to know his Colonels can get out of there when the shit starts flying.”
Conrad has met officers like that. If the Emperor is one of them, it accounts for a lot about his rise to power.
Turning back, Conrad discovered Philippe and his companion “Colonel” gazing across the bay at Vesuvius. He made sure he greeted them with every sign of respect.
“You people of Italy, you are always mad!” The Emperor made a wide gesture, that seemed to imply approval, and concluded with a flourish at the distant crater. “The earth turning crazy under your feet, and you don’t even notice it. Bravo!”
Conrad couldn’t help but follow the gesture. The haze that shrouded the top of the mountain might be catching light from the mid-morning sun, lifting up the arc of the sky—or it might be lit internally by some seepage of lava. From here it was impossible to say.
A jolt of the quay sent Tullio’s coach horses half-rearing, the grooms at their heads clinging on and soothing them.
Wistfully, the Emperor said, “I wish I could stay to see your opera.”
“Yes, sire,” Conrad agreed, dazed.
“We agreed, Imperial Majesty,” the other colonel observed mildly.
“We did, I know, Philippe; no need for all of that. I am your commander, not your Emperor. We have known each other too long.” The Emperor of the North hugged his subordinate.
Conrad suspected, from how the other man took it, that this happened quite often.
“We should go into the theatre, sire,” Conrad ventured.
“Of course!”
Conrad could see how difficult it was for the remaining Colonel, Philippe, to avoid a subordinate position to his companion. Conrad ushered them towards the back entrances of the San Carlo, eyes alert for watchers. Tullio sidled up close.
Conrad muttered, “If everything goes this much according to plan, this will be the first easy thing to happen today!”
“So what’s been happening?”
“Luigi can fill you in on the details. I can’t stay away from the dress re
hearsal now—shouldn’t be doing it for even this amount of time.” Conrad braced his mental strength. “Briefly—we found our traitors. Roberto, Conte di Argente. Leonora, Contessa di Argente.”
Tullio Rossi stopped dead.
A momentary glint of light made his expression unclear; either fear or fury. He jerked back into motion, approaching the backstage doors.
“And you believe it, padrone?”
Conrad’s thumb found a small scar left on his hand by flying glass. It still bled slightly when rubbed. “I was the one who discovered it.—You won’t believe how much has changed here in the last twenty-four hours.”
He passed significant details on to Tullio while they infiltrated the cramped wooden corridors in the upper floors of the San Carlo, entered at the rear of the royal box, and the two Colonels—one indefinably in the lead—examined it from a tactical viewpoint.
“So… Let me get this straight,” Tullio said thoughtfully, removing his tricorne hat and scratching at his shaven head. He squinted at Conrad’s face, where—Conrad hoped—Sandrine’s stage make-up covered the black eye.
“So, il Superbo came in and found you two kissing like two hogs eating the same banana—”
“Tullio!”
“—But it’s not the composer who’s the main traitor, it’s the composer’s creepy dead wife?”
“Leonora is not creepy!”
Tullio looked him up and down. “Padrone—you’re a lunatic.”
“After all these years, this comes as a surprise to you?” Conrad wryly quoted the Latin tag he had adopted as his own at the age of sixteen. “Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit!”
Tullio glared.
“The Roman poet Horace.” Conrad smiled. “‘That man’s either mad—or he’s composing verses!’”
The ex-soldier watched the two Colonels arranging lines of exit from various seats. He shuffled forward, towards the front of the box, and Conrad realised Tullio was looking out into the empty auditorium—but not at the gilded coat of arms of the King of the Two Sicilies, or at the chandelier, quivering from tremors too small for the human body to feel.
Tullio’s intent gaze picked out the figures on stage, where a slim figure led one of the chorus singers to her correct mark by the hair.
He wants to speak with Paolo, of course.
“Minute or two, now,” Tullio murmured, his tone all business. “My friend and me will be going down to the coach, and leaving Napoli. You sure you won’t come with me? What you told me about il Superbo… We been out-paced at every stage, it looks like. You and Paolo ought to come.”
Conrad gripped the other man’s hand hard.
“If I could, I would, I promise. I need to stay here. Paolo’s conducting—I wouldn’t leave that to the second violin or Roberto.” He winced. It remained natural to call the Count by his given name. “And it looks like I’m going to be fixing the libretto and rehearsing them past the point where the curtain goes up.”
Tullio folded his arms, glaring sullenly down at the figure behind the forte-piano.
“I still don’t like it that I’m leaving you behind—still less so now we know Il Conte di Argente is one of the Prince’s Men. Bloody arrogant bastard! If the man has betrayed his cause, you can’t trust him!”
“You can trust him to do everything a betrayed man would do.” Conrad hoped his hot neck and ears were not visibly pink. “Take a minute while the Colonel gets settled in his coach. Come and see Isaura.”
It took very little time to be done with the royal box after that. The Emperor was escorted outside by Philippe, and Conrad indicated to Tullio the young man in a brown cutaway coat and dishevelled linen cravat, walking away from the violin section.
Tullio deferentially approached the opera’s first violin and conductor, and Conrad took up a place further down the wall so that they might finish in peace. Paolo gave his cherub-blush, after a few minutes, and slipped back off into the auditorium.
“He says he has to conduct,” Tullio Rossi murmured, rejoining Conrad. He gazed after Paolo, seeming perplexed as she joined Roberto Capiraso at the forte-piano.
For a man who changed sides in a fit of pique, the Conte di Argente appeared to be working the others—and himself—to death rehearsing the new material.
Does he now hate his wife that much?
“We’ve arranged a rendezvous at the coast a bit north of here,” Tullio remarked quietly. “Don’t know if I can make it back before the end of L’Altezza.”
That bothered him, Conrad could see.
“I’ll do my best. Corrado…” Tullio’s questioning was discrete. “Will we know what’s happening at the Anfiteatro before I go?”
Conrad shrugged, digging down into himself for hope. “They must have stopped her. Surely. If that was the right place. It’s been nearly two hours.”
“Touching faith in humanity you got there, padrone.” Tullio couldn’t restrain a grin. It undid all the effect of putting the man into Conrad’s second-best formal coat: Tullio looked resoundingly like some bandit masnadiere.
Conrad accompanied him back to the coach. It was not entirely surprising that they found Luigi Esposito in conversation with the Colonels.
“Luigi will know.”
“Yes, but do we have anything to barter for gossip?”
Conrad gave an acknowledging smirk.
With a civil-seeming farewell, Luigi Esposito left the foreigners and ambled back across the yard, all apparent ease.
Conrad suddenly realised that the police captain’s white-gloved hands were clasped behind him, almost clenched into fists.
Conrad abandoned any idea of joking. “News?”
Luigi Esposito swept the open back yard of the San Carlo with his gaze—Colonel Philippe and the false ‘Colonel Étienne’ tactfully stood discussing the coach horses, as men will—and came back to Conrad.
“Nothing. Nothing, Corrado. In the past hour, everything’s gone dead.” If Luigi’s expression seemed untroubled, his eyes were deeply uneasy. “No rider from Commendatore Mantenucci. No messengers from any of Alvarez’s captains. Nothing observed from the campaniles. Since they passed through the Grotto of Posillipo, it’s as if over a hundred men have just vanished.”
“Che cazzo!” Conrad found himself patting the dapper man’s shoulder in unaccustomed consolation. “If they have got into a fight—it’s far more likely that messengers have gone astray. The roads are bad out that way. Give it an hour before you panic.”
Luigi Esposito raised a groomed eyebrow. “I’ll panic when I please, thank you, Corradino!”
He nonetheless returned the clasp of Conrad’s hand.
Tullio Rossi gave the police captain a respectful nod as Luigi left. “Speaking of time, I need to be going.”
Conrad consulted his watch. “Merda! Three hours at best before curtain up!—I have to get back inside—”
He put his hands on Tullio’s shoulders, aware of the tension through the older man’s body, and knew it to be partly the Emperor’s arranged escape, and partly the same thoughts that Conrad found himself subject to, too often now, about any of his friends.
Is this the last time we’ll see each other?
He embraced Tullio, with all his strength; the other man thumping him on his back like a brother, with a force that left Conrad breathless.
“I don’t like leaving you here!” Tullio sullenly muttered, breaking free. “And you can’t trust her, wherever she’s gone. You know that, don’t you? Minchia! Why am I bothering—”
“I know I can’t trust her!”
Tullio Rossi turned and walked towards the front of the coach. He picked up his coach-whip, and threw a handful of coins to the boys holding the horses. Conrad widened his strides to keep up with him, and grabbed Tullio’s elbow before the older man could climb up into the box.
“I know,” Conrad protested. “Trust me!”
“I trust you to do what I’d do if it was Paolo.” The older man rested the loop of his whip against Conrad’s shou
lder. “Fight it tooth and nail, and keep looking for something that doesn’t make her the cunt it looks like she is. Right?”
A tremor ran through Conrad’s body, as if the distant caldera echoed his emotion.
“You know me far too well.” He managed to look Tullio in the face. “It’s gone beyond not trusting her. Every word that she’s said to me since she came to Naples is a lie. Every word in Venice.”
Tullio Rossi smiled, almost wistfully. “If you do meet her again—don’t let her lie to you again.”
Quite how unlikely he was ever to speak to Nora hit Conrad with the force of knuckles in the kidneys. He was wordless. Then:
“Tullio—if you’re able to come back here in the next few hours, then do. If not, run. Either way, I trust you to end up in one piece.”
Tullio wrung Conrad’s hand with emphatic strength, and mounted nimbly up to the driver’s box. The boys loosed the horses’s heads; the tip of the whip cracked at the leader’s ear. Conrad watched through the skirl of dust as—with a creak of the wooden coach-frame and the scrape of iron-rimmed wheels—the Emperor of the North began his escape from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Tullio grinned crookedly and shouted back to Conrad:
“Be well, Corrado! Don’t forget!—if you die doing this, I’ll hurt you.”
He missed curtain-up.
He had slipped out of the rehearsal rooms fifteen minutes before, into the uplifting brilliancy of the San Carlo’s auditorium. The tiers of opera boxes overpowered him, all six floors full of the nobility and important officials who owned them. Not a few had snuffed out their candles to see the bright stage the better. The blue and gold interior of the royal box filled up fast; Ferdinand shaking hands with nobles, dignitaries, and ambassadors; their wives in jewel-coloured dresses and white diamonds curtseying to show off their plump shoulders.
Conrad, down in the pit with the ordinary citizens of Naples—who gambled, gestured, and conversed at the tops of their voices—looked up at Colonel Étienne, beside King Ferdinand. Étienne appeared to be producing an excellent, over-emotional impression of his sovereign. Colonel Philippe looked as if he saved up the experience for recounting (with appropriate satisfaction) to the true Emperor.