1 - Interrupted Aria

by Beverle Graves Myers

  “You said yourself that the few drops he administered would not have caused her death,” Brother Mark reminded me in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “It would seem so, but I’m no physician.”

  “Nor am I, but we have a brother in our monastery who is learned in herbs and medicinals of all sorts. I took Felice’s story to him. He assured me that the small dose of belladonna would have given Adelina only a temporarily dry mouth and maybe not even that.”

  With the sun on my back and Brother Mark’s steady presence by my side, I began to calm down and marshal my swirling thoughts. My ignorance dismayed me. I thought I knew Felice’s mind almost as well as my own, but I had severely underestimated his dislike of Adelina and his thirst for revenge. I couldn’t help but wonder how many others in my immediate circle I had misjudged.

  Brother Mark broke in on my unhappy ruminations. “What can I do?”

  I hesitated, not sure of his question.

  “To help you find Adelina Belluna’s killer, what can I do?”

  “You have done so much already. More than we could have ever hoped for.”

  The monk’s sensitive nature was finely attuned that day. In my voice, he managed to detect an undercurrent of suspicion that even I was barely aware of. He focused his hooded, gray eyes on the tower of the great church before us and explained, “When I agreed to Alessandro’s scheme to get in the guardhouse to see Felice, it was only your sister’s condition that concerned me. I was—and still am—convinced that Felice’s imprisonment is adding a dangerous burden to Grisella’s already besieged mind.

  “But then I met Felice.” Brother Mark’s solemn countenance lit up with the illumination of a hundred wax candles. “Your friend is so noble in the face of his suffering. All those years, his voice was the very center of his existence. When his vocal prowess fled, he bore the loss bravely and trusted that Our Lord would heal him and restore his life’s work. Then, just when he was convinced a cure was within his grasp, he stumbled. His jealousy toward Adelina threatened his very soul. Now, he reproaches himself so deeply for his hateful thoughts and actions toward her. He is willing to die to atone for them, but I, I mean we, can’t let that happen.”

  “You have come to care for Felice,” I said, picking my words carefully.

  His gray eyes took on a crystalline shimmer that carried me back to the vision that had engulfed me during the exorcism. “His suffering heart speaks to my lonely one as no one else’s ever has,” he answered simply.

  “Then the best way you can help Felice is to spend as much time with him during the next several days as that rogue of a jailer will allow.”

  “You have my word that I will,” he replied with a heartfelt urgency.

  The clock on the church tower struck and I knew I must go, but Brother Mark’s assessment of my sister’s mental state troubled me. I barely dared to ask, “If the worst happens and we are unable to save Felice, what effect would his death have on Grisella’s condition?”

  Inside his black hood, the monk shook his head gravely. “We can’t afford to let that happen, for Felice or Grisella.”

  Chapter 25

  On stage, the hero is never truly abandoned. Though he may find himself pitted against insurmountable odds or unbeatable foes, all is not lost. Just when the hero reaches his most desperate straits, the clouds part and a golden chariot carrying a godly figure floats down to the stage to effect a heavenly rescue. They call it a deus ex machina, a god from a machine. That’s what I needed just then: a miraculous deliverance complete with a thrilling chorus in the background.

  It was Tuesday morning, two days before the Carnival would pause for the Christmas novena and signal Messer Grande to deliver Felice to the spurious justice of the Tribunal. After a night of useless activity, my dejected steps had led me to the Benedictines’ ancient tower. I climbed the spiral staircase, slowly moving from sunlight to damp shade with every turn. On the summit, I scanned Venice’s azure sky for any sign of a dramatic miracle that might help me save my friend from an excruciating end. Though I was as desperate as any embattled hero I had ever played, I knew the puffy clouds drifting in and out of the morning sun’s slanted rays held no promise of rescue for me or Felice.

  After leaving Brother Mark the previous afternoon, I had gone home to undo the transformation to Dominican friar, then proceeded directly to the Palazzo Viviani. I was sure that Domenico Viviani held the key to the mystery of Adelina’s death, and I meant to confront him and get the truth if I had to pummel it out of him. It no longer mattered if I never sang in Venice again. There were other cities that loved opera and were beyond the scope of Viviani’s power and influence. Of course, my boldness gained me very little. The lackeys that guarded the stately entrance refused to admit me. Threatening to bang on the doors and yell for their master until my dying breath only brought Bondini around to deal with the obstreperous intruder.

  Austere and flinty-eyed as ever, Viviani’s steward accosted me on the portico. “What is your business here, Signor Amato?”

  “I must see your master right away. It’s a matter of utmost importance.”

  “Theater business should be taken to Maestro Torani.”

  “This has nothing to do with the opera.” I hesitated, trying to match his frosty demeanor. “It is a personal matter.”

  He allowed himself a distasteful sniff. “A singer-boy such as yourself can have no personal business with a noble lord of the Republic.”

  Hot, angry words rose in my throat, but I left them unsaid. I realized I had let my emotions play me for a fool once again. When would I learn that badgering would never bring results at a household of Viviani’s social standing? It took all my will, but I managed to hang my head and humbly beg Bondini’s pardon. By playing the penitent, I managed to find out that Signor Viviani planned to attend the opera that night and extracted a half-hearted promise that Bondini would tell his master I wanted to speak with him.

  I don’t remember singing a note of that night’s performance. My body moved around the stage in a daze while my mind raced uselessly to and fro like a hunting dog that has lost its quarry’s scent. Before the first act, Leonora sent a footman to my dressing room. He carried an invitation to another intimate supper at her casino. In my reply, I had to beg her forgiveness and plead the pressing urgency of Felice’s case. When I made my first entrance, it pained me to see that her box was dark. I began to wonder where she had decided to spend the evening and who was enjoying her company, but realized that I must drive those thoughts from my mind and concentrate on matters at hand. I fully expected that, before the night was over, I would either have uncovered Domenico Viviani’s role in Adelina’s murder or be at the bottom of a canal with a Viviani dagger in my ribs.

  Neither eventuality had come to pass. As I sang my way through the opera, hoisting my spear in a lusty hunting song or praising the tranquility of a pastoral meadow, I kept my eyes glued to my patron’s box. The ranking scion of the Viviani clan occupied the middle seat on the railing. Even at a distance, I could feel the charismatic power emanating from the man. He followed Marguerite’s arias with some interest, gave mine wavering attention, and whispered in his brother Claudio’s ear while Crivelli and Caterina were singing. Behind him, Elisabetta kept raising a glass to her lips in a bored, distracted manner. I could just glimpse Bondini hovering like a wraith in the recesses of the box.

  At the first intermission, I threw a cloak over my short tunic and mounted the stairs to the third-level gallery that led to the patron’s box. My progress was impeded by a hall full of well-wishers who broke into spontaneous applause when they caught sight of me. As I attempted to push my way through, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was a buxom courtesan in a scarlet gown. She grabbed my face between her fleshy hands and kissed me squarely on the mouth. I struggled out of her grasp and pressed full tilt to the box at the end of the hall. My haste and my gathering entourage startled the pink-coated footmen stationed at the door. This time
I didn’t stop to ask their permission, but half pushed, half crashed my way into the luxurious box.

  The interior of the Viviani box was a miniature drawing room scene. Carlo read a book by the weak light of a wall lamp, Claudio lounged against the railing with several other fops, Elisabetta and her disagreeable sister picked at a box of sweets, and Benito hovered delicately at his lady’s side. They all turned toward me with open mouths. But where were Domenico and his major-domo?

  Claudio rose to his feet with a pugnacious set to his jaw. “A rather unceremonious entrance, isn’t it? I’d have thought you would be in your dressing room by now, Signore. What brings us this honor?” he asked in a sarcastic drawl.

  Strains of ballet music floated up from the orchestra pit. The box overhung the stage so closely, I could hear the thump of the dancers’ feet as they landed their leaps and pirouettes. I bowed to the assembled family. “Excuse my awkward intrusion, the crowd in the hall was overflowing with a bit too much admiration. I came to pay my respects to Signor Viviani and congratulate him on the opera’s successful run.”

  Somewhat mollified, Claudio sat back in his seat and reached for his snuffbox. “Would you say The Revenge of Juno has been a success, then?”

  “Certainly, we’re near the end of the run, and the audience still deafens us with applause and begs for encores.”

  “But is it making money?”

  “I should think so. The house is full every night.”

  Claudio and Carlo traded private glances. “I told you Domenico made the right decision,” the younger brother said as he took a pinch of snuff. To me, he added, “After the initial interference from our rivals, and then that awful mess on opening night, there were those who advocated closing the theater entirely. But Domenico knew we had a winner on our hands. He is never wrong where profit is concerned.”

  “Yes, His Excellency clearly understands what Venice wants these days,” I said dryly. “Er, where is he? I wish to congratulate him in person.”

  As Carlo stifled a cough and went back to his book, Claudio shrugged and trained his eyes on the ballerinas in their flimsy skirts. “I doubt that he will return tonight. Some other time perhaps.”

  Again, Benito was willing to give me more information than his aristocratic benefactors. Whatever else the fellow might be, he was certainly persistent. He scampered nimbly to the door to usher me out and took my arm as we strolled down the now cleared hallway. As we neared the top of the staircase, I felt his hand slip under my cloak. Enduring his surreptitious caresses, I learned that Viviani had been called away just a few minutes before I entered the box.

  “Where was he going?”

  Benito rolled his eyes upward and smiled coyly, “Let me see. I’ll have to think. Might take me a minute.”

  I took a firm grip on his roving hand. “Think fast. I’m due on stage in a few minutes and I still have to get to my dressing room and change.”

  His face brightened. “I’ll go with you. I’ll help you. No one can get someone out of their clothing faster than I can.”

  “I’m sure that’s true, but if you really want to help, just tell me where Viviani and Bondini were headed.”

  “I don’t really know. A man who works in the warehouse came to the door and asked for Bondini. They talked out in the hall. I couldn’t hear a word, although I did try.” He pursed his lips in a fleeting pout. “Bondini came back in a few minutes and whispered something to His Excellency. They were both gone in a flash.”

  “Did you catch anything? A word even?” I asked desperately.

  “Bondini said ‘Hurry’ and ‘Urgent’ several times. I think I heard something about the East. It made me think of incense and veiled women. Ah yes, he mentioned the Sultan and the Turkish provinces.”

  “Anything else?”

  The little castrato thought for a moment, but shook his head.

  “Thank you, Benito. This is the second time you have helped me, and I won’t forget it.” I smiled and squeezed his hand before running down the stairs. At the first landing, something made me pause and glance back. Benito still stood at the top of the stairs, following me with his bird-bright eyes. His face seemed to have been wiped clean. With his features devoid of the usual playful coquetry, all that remained was a pained, affecting sadness that lingered in my thoughts for the rest of the evening.

  After the opera, Alessandro met me at the stage door. “My merchant wouldn’t talk,” he said shortly. “He’s afraid of something…something a lot more powerful than my paltry threats.”

  “No matter,” I replied as I pulled my brother down the alley. “We have to find Viviani. He’s the key. Whatever game he’s been playing, I think his luck has finally run out.”

  Alessandro and I had spent a long night searching for Viviani in every place that had even a feeble Turkish connection. At a coffeehouse that catered to Eastern visitors, we encountered a huddle of Turkish merchants from Salonica. Alessandro spoke with them in the lingua franca that allowed East and West to bargain in the Levantine markets. He asked if they knew Viviani or any of his agents, but they kept their elongated pipes firmly between their teeth and favored us with no more than doleful shakes of their fantastically turbaned heads.

  We had a flurry of hope when a former shipmate told Alessandro of a Turkish vessel that was ready to sail for Alexandria as soon as favorable winds arose. We hurried to the wharf, and my brother got us aboard by inquiring after fine merchandise, but the old captain threatened to send us packing when he realized that information was our true quest. To appease him, we spent nearly ten zecchini on useless trinkets. His mellowing humor grew black again when Alessandro mentioned Viviani. Before we knew it, we were out on the dock with lighter purses and no new information about my wily patron.

  We looked for the nobleman everywhere from elite gaming rooms to seamy waterfront taverns. But even as we scoured the city, we sensed we were on a fool’s errand. When the dawn broke to reveal a masked populace dragging home in disarray after a night of debauchery, we knew we had failed. Wherever Viviani had gone to ground, he had no intention of being found.

  A sudden commotion jerked my thoughts back to the present. Several gondolas shot into the usually quiet canal to the west of my tower perch, their rowers pushing the oars with vigor. The shouts of the excited gondoliers bounced off the surrounding masonry and dissolved into echoed snatches of garbled names and words. As the commotion invaded the market in the next square, women stopped haggling with the merchants in the stalls and piles of produce went unattended as everyone ran to tell his neighbor what must be a truly startling piece of news. I leaned dangerously far over the stone parapet, but still couldn’t make out what was causing the excitement.

  I descended the spiral staircase at top speed and hurried toward the great piazza. The closer I came to the heart of Venice, the denser the crowds grew. One of the huge bells in the Campanile began tolling mournfully. It was too early for the nona, the noon bell. Was it the malefico that warned of dire circumstances?

  A boy of about ten was running toward me. I grabbed him by the shoulders. “What’s going on? Has the old Doge died?”

  “No, not him. A nobleman’s turned traitor. They’re going to execute him for commerce with the Grand Turk.”

  “Who? What’s his name?” I demanded of the squirming ragamuffin.

  “Don’t know,” he cried, wrenching out of my hands. “I’ve got to get my mother. She won’t want to miss the hanging.”

  The boy clattered off down the paving stones, and I pushed on toward the huge square. I found a man hawking news-sheets under the Vecchio Procuratie. For two soldi, I received a flimsy sheet of newsprint that carried an official-sounding proclamation.

  “Let all well-informed persons know,” I read, “that Domenico Alvise Viviani is guilty of serious sedition and wickedness against our Most Serene Republic.” Scanning the page, I saw that Viviani had been declared “an enemy of the state and the entire Christian race” fo
r entering into a private business arrangement with the Ottoman Sultan in Constantinople. In a midnight session, Mateo Albrimani, Viviani’s archrival, had denounced my patron before the Tribunal of State Inquisitors. He had delivered a highly charged account of Viviani’s crimes against the state coupled with an eloquent plea for harsh retribution. As proof, the Albrimani patriarch had proffered documents drawn up by no less a personage than the Sultan’s Grand Vizier. The papers authorized the governors of several far-flung provinces to bypass the official trading colonies established by the Venetian government and deal directly with Domenico Viviani’s agents.

  “So that’s where Viviani’s new-found wealth has been coming from,” I said to myself. Skimming the profits off Venetian trade in the Levant was risky business indeed. Undermining Venice’s business interests was an offense punishable by death. And it would be no hasty, hidden execution for such a full-blown traitor. Only a very public pageant featuring one of Venice’s foremost patricians swinging from a gibbet would do. By Viviani’s hideous example, the State Inquisitors would remind the populace, high and low born, where supreme authority lay.

  My eyes flashed to the bottom of the grimy news-sheet. A reward was offered: one thousand silver ducats for Viviani’s delivery to the Tribunal. The rebel merchant must still be at large.

  My fist crumpled the news-sheet into a ball while my brain worked furiously. Was Viviani’s apostasy the secret that Adelina planned to use against her former lover? Had she promised her silence in return for her daughter’s promotion to prima donna at the theater? My poor dead friend, she should have realized Viviani would stop at nothing to protect his family’s fortune. Such a ruthless soul would never trust another to keep a dangerous secret of that magnitude. More to the point, with Viviani on the run or at the end of a rope, how would we ever be able to prove that Felice didn’t kill Adelina?

  I was halfway to the theater before I realized where my feet were taking me. I found Torani, Caterina, and some of the other musicians gathered in the foyer of the San Stefano. Despite the early hour, candles blazed in the wall sconces and illuminated the plaster reliefs that covered the walls and ceiling. Sbirri were guarding the doors to the box office and the auditorium.