Between Cilistina’s ordeal, their resignations, and the row kicked up by his wife, he was at the end of his rope.
The dizziness would have been of no consequence whatsoever had don Alterio not happened, at that moment, to be on the top step of the fourteen stairs that led down to the courtyard.
He lost his balance and tumbled down to the bottom of the staircase.
And there he remained, crying out in pain. He couldn’t move his left foot and was bleeding from a gash in his head.
To add to the chaos, donna Matilde came running, saw him and, while descending the stairs, misstepped and fell on top of him with all her two hundered plus pounds before fainting in turn.
CHAPTER NINE
The Pains of Don Alterio
and the Troubles of the Prince of Ficarazzi
The court physician was sent for at once, but it took the hand of God before don Alterio’s servants could find out that the doctor had gone off to the Cassaro and track him down.
Don Serafino examined him to verify that there were no additional injuries to other parts of the body, then applied a compress of herbs to his foot, which had sustained a simple dislocation, wrapped it up, then wrapped his head as well. Luckily the wound was rather superficial.
Considering his fall, he’d been quite fortunate.
Don Alterio wanted the doctor to stay a while and chat, but don Serafino told him that he couldn’t because he had to return to the Cassaro, and in haste, to look for a midwife who he knew lived there, and bring her to the palace because she was needed by donna Eleonora.
Don Alterio was taken aback.
“So donna Eleonora’s pregnant?”
“Come on! She’s a widow!”
“Well, don Angel still could have, during his last few days on earth . . . ”
“You must be joking!”
“Why, then?”
“I guess I can tell you, since, as the marquesa told me herself, it was you who went and persuaded her to grant the subsidy to don Simone Trecca for his Holy Refuge.”
Don Alterio grew alarmed.
“Are you the only one she told I went to see her?”
“Of course. Donna Eleonora knows who she can talk to and who she can’t.”
Don Alterio calmed down.
“So what’s this about the midwife?” he asked.
“This midwife,” don Serafino resumed, “whose name is Sidora Bonifacio, is highly skilled at her trade and is the most honest, trustworthy midwife I know.”
“And why would you need such a midwife?”
“She will be asked to verify whether all the orphan girls staying at don Simone’s Holy Refuge are not only still virgins, but have received no other offenses in any other parts of their bodies. Know what I mean?”
“Clearly.”
“That’s what the marquesa wanted, and that’s what will be. It’s the condition she has imposed for the release of the subsidy. And she will not budge from this demand.”
Don Alterio wanted to go deeper into the question. He found it quite interesting, and indeed it might prove to his advantage.
“Tell me something, doctor, man to man,” said don Alterio. “As for virginity, I get it. It’s easy to establish whether a girl’s a virgin or not. But how can one tell whether there’s been any offense to other parts of the body?”
“There’s an ancient method that’s not very scientific, but it’s the only way, and Sidonia Bonifacio knows how to do it.”
“And how does it work?”
“You take an egg, you boil it till it’s hard, then you blacken one half with candle-soot, and then you ever so lightly introduce the smoked half in the presumably offended part of the body and delicately pull it back out.”
“And what does that show?”
“It shows whether the inner folds have been forced.”
“Ah, I see, thank you,” said don Alterio, whose pains all suddenly vanished. “When can I start walking again?” he continued.
“I’ll be back tomorrow morning to make you a new compress, and I hope you’ll be walking again the day after tomorrow, though you may need to lean on a cane.”
But even if he had to crawl on all fours, don Alterio intended to pay a call on that stinking jackanapes of a marquis and lay down his conditions.
He now had the upper hand and would know how to use it. At this point Cilistina’s freedom was guaranteed.
The following morning the doctor found don Alterio’s foot no longer swollen, and so did not apply another compress. He only dressed it lightly, and also reduced the bandages on the duke’s head. He told him he could get up and, for that first day, limit himself to half an hour of walking.
“When can I go outside?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Were you able to find the midwife?”
“No, she’s away from Palermo. She was summoned to deliver the daughter of Baron Pennisi. She’ll be back in two days.”
This was exactly what don Alterio wanted to hear.
And just as the doctor was leaving, don Alterio suddenly realized that he would never make it through the coming night without being able to hold Cilistina in his arms.
He decided to go to the Holy Refuge at nightfall, even if he had to lean on a cane and screw a hat down on his head to hide the bandages. He would sleep with the girl and not meet with don Simone until the following day.
After all, since the midwife wouldn’t be coming with donna Eleonora for another two days, he had time.
But the devil put his personal touch on things, and in the form most congenial to him: fire.
Already donna Matilde, as soon as she’d heard that he would have to go out that evening after dinner, had raised the roof and busted his cojones into a thousand pieces as she tsk-tsked him to death at the table.
“But where do you think you’re going with that leg?”
“And with your broken head!”
“Can’t you see you can’t stand up straight?”
“Can’t you understand you’re no longer young?”
Don Alterio pretended as if she wasn’t speaking to him and kept right on eating, his only thought that he would shortly be leaving his house and running to Cilistina.
He’d just finished eating and was getting up from the table when Pippino, the major domo, rushed in.
“The kitchen’s on fire.”
Don Alterio ran off and could do nothing more than notice how high the flames already were. With the combined help of the household servants and those of the nearby palazzi, it took them almost till midnight to put out the fire, which in the meantime had also spread to the two rooms beside the kitchen.
And so don Alterio had to go hungry that night.
And since donna Matilde was convinced that someone had cast the evil eye on her house, she even forced him to kneel beside her for two hours, praying.
The following evening, however, one hour after sunset, don Alterio was knocking at the great door of the Holy Refuge. And as he knocked, he took out the key to Cilistina’s cell. This time he was not going to let don Simone waste any of his time by standing on ceremony.
The great door opened. And he looked straight into the criminal face of Totò ’Mpallomeni.
He remained speechless for moment.
“Good evening, my lord,” said Totò.
“Good evening,” don Alterio replied.
He brushed past him as he entered, then headed for the stairs. ’Mpallomeni ran after him, passed him, then blocked his way.
“The marquis wants to talk to you.”
“Get out of my way.”
“The marquis wants to explain to you—”
“There’s nothing to explain.
“Look, sir—”
“Get the hell out of here, bastard.”
The other didn’t
budge, but merely smiled mockingly, as though daring him to try and get by.
All of a sudden don Alterio realized that what was happening was an exact replica of the scene of a few evenings before, except that in the marquis’s place there was now ’Mpallomeni. Clearly he was trying to stall him because at that moment Pippo Nasca was fucking Cilistina and amusing himself by torturing her with his dagger.
For a moment that was the vision before his eyes, but then he only saw red.
When his sight returned to normal, Totò ’Mpallomeni was lying on the floor groaning and clutching his lower abdomen with both hands. The kick he’d just received had been sudden and violent, and the simultaneous cane-blow straight to the head had been so forceful as to leave him completely stunned. He hadn’t the strength to react, not even when don Alterio bent down, took the dagger from his belt, and ran towards the staircase.
The door of Cilistina’s cell was wide open and there was nobody inside.
The mattress was rolled up on the wooden planks, the sheets were gone, there wasn’t a single article of clothing on the clothes rack. The room looked as if it had never been lived in.
He stood there, stunned, staring into the empty room.
A hundered different confused thoughts flashed through his head, each one worse than the last.
His final hope was that they had simply moved her to another cell, but he immediately became convinced that there would have been no reason to do so. Clearly the marquis had learned that Cilistina was pregnant and got rid of her. As he’d done with the other two girls.
But maybe he hadn’t had her killed. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that the marquis was capable of such a thing. That story of killings must have been a figment of the girls’ imaginations.
He started slowly descending the stairs, thinking and trying to calm himself down.
He had to weigh his words, control his gestures, stay always lucid. Anger was his enemy; it could make him say and do the wrong things, all of which would harm Cilistina.
When he went into the marquis’s office he found him there alone. Totò ’Mpallomeni wasn’t there, though he was probably hiding somewhere, ready to come running when the marquis called for him.
Careful, Alterio, he advised himself. Remember that Cilistina’s fate is in your hands.
He scornfully threw the dagger onto the desk.
“Give this back to its owner.”
And he sat down in front of don Simone without saying another word.
Don Simone spoke without once taking his eyes off the dagger.
“I wanted to spare you this nasty surprise,” he said. “But my lord refused to listen to ’Mpallomeni . . . You hurt him, you know. The poor man was just following my orders—”
“Where is Cilistina?” don Alterio cut him off, forcing himself to speak as calmly as possible.
The marquis threw up his hands and said nothing.
“Where is she?” don Alterio repeated.
“Will you believe me if I tell you I don’t know?”
“No.”
“And yet it’s true.”
“Why is she not in her cell?”
“She ran away.”
“And how did she do that?”
“The person who locks the cells every night is a maid named Filippa. This morning the other maids noticed that Cilistina’s door was open and her cell was empty. When they went to look for Filippa, she was gone too. She’d escaped with Cilistina.”
“And how could Cilistina have persuaded her to do that? Certainly not with money, since she didn’t have any.”
“Apparently Filippa was in love with her.”
The story made no sense. Don Alterio pretended to believe it.
“But have you looked for her?”
“Of course. That’s all Pippo Nasca and Totò ’Mpallomeni have been doing since dawn this morning. Neither of them has seen her.”
“Do you know whether she has any distant relatives?”
“Yes, a female cousin who lives under Mount Pellegrino.”
“So one could—”
“We already have. I sent Pippo Nasca there. They know nothing. But tell me something. Did you tell Cilistina who you were?”
“No.”
“So there’s no chance you’ll find her waiting for you outside your door.”
He paused, and then continued: “I realize that you’ve become attached to Cilistina, but . . . you must set your heart at rest, my lord duke. I get the feeling we’re not going to see that girl again.”
The quick sidelong glance the marquis gave don Alterio upon uttering these words made him absolutely convinced that Cilistina had been murdered, but he had the strength to remain impassive. Had he reacted badly and accused the marquis of murder, the man was capable of having him killed as well.
“At any rate,” don Simone resumed, “you mustn’t think that my debt to you ends here. You’ve yet to be repaid in full. If you’d like go upstairs and pick another girl . . . ”
It suddenly occurred to don Alterio that perhaps some of the other girls had heard something that might help to find what had really happened to Cilistina.
“Now that you mention it . . . ” he said.
“Bravo! That’s the spirit! Come with me and I’ll help you to choose.”
“I’ve already chosen. I want the redhead on the second floor.”
The redhead lived in the cell closest to Cilistina’s. Don Simone made a face of regret.
“Ah, she’s busy tonight with someone you know well, a colleague of yours from the Council.”
It could only have been don Cono Giallombardo. In fact it was he who had first spoken to him about the Holy Refuge and explained how it functioned.
“Well, then, never mind,” said don Alterio.
“I’m sorry you had to make this journey for nothing, my lord duke. But listen: I’ve been planning a nice big meal here for Sunday evening, to celebrate the granting of the subsidy. It’ll be me, don Cono Giallombardo, Count Ciaravolo, Marquis Pullara, Marquis Bedicò, Baron Torregrossa and Canon Bonsignore. If you’d be so kind as to do me the honor, we could make it an even number: eight. With eight of the prettiest orphan girls of the Refuge. And those who wish to continue the evening alone with a girl will be quite free to do so.”
Don Alterio pretended to think it over.
“All right. I’ll come.”
“Is your carriage outside?”
“No. It’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
“Then I’ll have my own take you home.”
“Thank you. And please do me a favor. You must tell ’Mpallomeni and Nasca to keep looking looking for Cilistina, when they can. And if they find her, or can give me some news of her, I’m prepared to pay them well.”
“I’ll tell them. But I don’t think . . . ”
Don Alterio likewise didn’t think Nasca and ’Mpallomeni would be giving him any news of Cilistina. At the most they could tell him where they’d buried her. He’d said it only to convince the marquis that he’d swallowed the story about her running away.
The prince of Ficarazzi didn’t manage to invite don Esteban de la Tierna in time, because don Estaban invited him first. But not to eat. He invited him to the palace, immediately, for a discussion. So immediately, in fact, that the officer and two soldiers who’d brought him the notice of summons waited for him to get ready, took him into the carriage in which they’d come, and brought him to a basement room in the palace where the Grand Visitor General had set up his office. The Visitor was sitting behind a table covered with papers and had a man at either side of him, two assistants he’d brought with him from Spain. As soon as don Giustino came in, don Esteban stood up, approached him, smiling, and sat him down in an armchair opposite his worktable.
Seeing him so affable, the prince perked up.
&nbs
p; Don Esteban, for his part, after apologizing for disturbing him, pointed to the papers and said he’d been studying the appropriations made by the prince in his function as Grand Captain of Justice and had found them to be perfectly in order, immaculate.
The prince secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He was certain he’d left no written trace of his misdeeds, but one never knew.
Don Esteban continued, saying there was just one thing that was a wee bit unclear. But it was a trifle of no importance, which he was sure his excellency the prince could explain.
“I’d be happy to do so.”
Did his excellency the prince have any recollection of what had happened at Roccalumera four months after the arrival of the late viceroy don Angel, rest his soul?
The prince replied that he didn’t have a clear memory of it. He vaguely recalled that it had involved a popular uprising against—
Then—don Esteban interrupted him—by his excellency the prince’s leave, he would refresh his memory by citing the report that he, as Grand Captain, had made to the late Viceroy. Was that all right?
Quite all right, said the prince.
So, according to the report, the population of Roccalumera, led by an important cloth merchant by the name of Angelo Butera, had risen up against Count don Vincenzo Aricò di Santa Novella, the lord of the town, because the count’s twenty-year-old son, Jacopo, had, for no reason other than the pleasure of doing so, had an old peasant bludgeoned to death. But his excellency the prince, when he got to the site of the unrest after the revolt had been firmly put down, declared that things were not as had been reported. That is, the old peasant died because he’d fallen to the bottom of a ravine, and Angelo Butera had made up the whole story of the beating, inciting the population against don Vincenzo and his son because of a row over an expensive lot of oriental fabric that Jacopo had ordered and refused to pay for when he found it not to be first-rate, as their agreement had stipulated. And, as a result, he, the prince, had had the merchant arrested and thrown in jail, where he still remained. Was this what happened?
Of course that was what happened. He now remembered perfectly well.
So his excellency the prince confirmed this account?
The Revolution of the Moon Page 10