“Good. But take some exercise. Walk in the woods a little to give yourself an appetite. Then on Sunday we will go to Mass and show ourselves to be good Christians, and to refresh ourselves. I am still tired and will need all my strength. And in the afternoon you and I together will begin the preliminaries to the rite, so that on Monday we are fully prepared.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Alfredo.
“You are an excellent boy. Indeed, you are all that I had hoped.”
As usual there were layers of meaning beneath the simple words, but now Alfredo understood what they might be.
He went to bed tense with expectation and hope and fear. Time had the feel of a river just before it reaches a weir. He could look back and see all that had happened laid out in order, full of swirls and crosscurrents and flurries. He could look forward, beyond the next couple of days, and see an unreadable tumult of foam. But between him and the lip of the weir the surface was almost smooth, tense, drawn silky taut by the pull of the coming drop. Despite that, he fell asleep at last, slept heavily, and woke in broad daylight.
Downstairs he found that Uncle Giorgio had already breakfasted, but the tension had returned in full force, and he longed to be out of the house, so he ate nothing and left by the front door. He didn’t immediately go out to the rose garden, but instead went northward into the old driveway, and stretched himself out once more on the lava flow.
He lay down and again molded his body to the night-chilled rock, imagining himself part of it, part of the mountain itself, letting his tension ease as that imagination became real, until he and the mountain were one thing, down to its white-hot roots, out to its farthest spurs and screes. The salamanders swam in his fiery veins, sang in his mind. It was a gift from the mountain. He guessed that even among the di Salas, only those whom the mountain had chosen could attain this understanding. You needed to give yourself to the mountain before it could return the gift. Perhaps, from the way Uncle Giorgio talked about the mountain and the salamanders, he had never himself achieved this, for all his skill and knowledge. He couldn’t give himself. But another di Sala, long ago—whoever it was that had written the book from which the notes in the dictionary had been taken—must have lain like this on another outcrop, and so come to his understanding.
Yes, he thought. Now I too understand. It all depends on the Master.
There were two mountains. There was one as he had first known it, full of the fury of fire, dangerous, unpredictable in its rages, vengeful, hated and feared. That was Uncle Giorgio’s mountain.
But if Alfredo’s father had been Master…He also had a furious temper. He was a true di Sala. Anger was his birthright. It was in his blood. But his mountain would not have been like that. Those who lived below it would have understood its power, and seen perhaps its fury. But the fury would not have fallen on them. They would have thought of it not with dread, but with awe. Not with hatred, but with love.
Yes, sang the salamanders in his mind. That is the mountain as it ought to be. That is our mountain.
Now it was Alfredo’s turn. He moved through the molten heart of the mountain and made himself known to the salamanders. Stilling their singing, they gathered round him. He sang to them in his mind, telling them everything he had seen and done and intended to do.
They answered with a burst of song, a complex polyphony of interwoven hopes and fears—eagerness to see their lost comrade freed, and the end of Uncle Giorgio’s hated Mastership, dread of his powers and the vengeance he might take if Alfredo failed. And something else, a different kind of excitement. Alfredo understood what it was only when their singing changed itself and became the strange repeated phrase that Toni had been playing, effortlessly improvising, yesterday in the rose garden. New music, a new Master, a new world.
He listened for a while and then withdrew himself into his body, still lying on the lava flow out in the world of air.
There was somebody there—Toni of course, but this time sitting on the rock beside him, peacefully waiting.
“You heard?” he said. “You were there too? They can’t help us, but they wish us well.”
Toni nodded, apparently understanding. Together they went out to the rose garden.
Later Annetta came with food. She had questions to ask. It was a slow process, though she was very clever about it, gesturing expressively with her hands and nodding or shaking her head as Alfredo guessed his way to her meanings. How was he so sure Uncle Giorgio would go to Mass?
“He’ll go if he possibly can. He’s still tired after Friday, and he needs to get himself away from the mountain for a bit. And I think he probably wants to act old and sick in front of everyone, too. He won’t worry about having to leave me behind, because the important thing for him is to get my body as strong as possible. The rest of me—my mind and so on—doesn’t matter, and that’s the bit the mountain wears out. I think he’s got to go.”
More gestures, more guessing.
“Yes, it’s a risk. I think the mountain will be aware of it as soon as we start to move the salamander, but he won’t notice as long as he’s in the church—he can’t feel the mountain there. As soon as he comes out he’ll know something’s happening, I’m fairly sure, but he won’t know what. He’ll feel it through the mountain and he’ll want to hurry home. If he takes you with him—I hope he will—anything you can do to slow him down a bit—make the mule go lame somehow, or give it some of those leaves while he’s in church…
“And he may still have some magic way of getting up the mountain, quicker than riding. Just walking, he’ll be going faster than us—our mules aren’t going to like it, are they? But if everything goes all right we should be way up into the wood before he comes out of church. After that…I don’t think we can possibly get to the top before he comes out of the wood, but provided we’re a good way up the slope…
“And stay down there, Annetta. I think there’s going to be an eruption. Don’t come back till it’s over. It’s going to be very dangerous anywhere up on the mountain. …”
And so on, anxiously checking things through, over and over, Alfredo more and more tense, longing for the evening to be here, Annetta frowning with thought but patient and determined, and Toni sitting with his recorder, fetching his music endlessly out of nowhere, utterly untroubled. Eventually, rather than brood and think any more, Alfredo fetched his recorder and joined him. Slowly the tension eased as he filled his mind with listening to Toni and trying to follow where he led, and by the time Annetta laid out the food she had brought he realized he was hungry enough to eat. That, he thought, grimly amused, was just as well. He must have food in his stomach. To throw up.
The afternoon crept by. For a while he joined Toni, watching the comings and goings of ants round their nest, and experimented with dropping obstacles, or crumbs of bread, in the trails. They scrambled around in the woods, which were full of twisting little paths that Toni seemed to know. They returned to the rose garden and played their recorders. Toward evening Annetta gathered what she had brought into her basket, except for four plums. She gave two to Toni and two to Alfredo, making signs that they were to eat them. Then she went back to get supper ready, holding up a finger before she left to show that the other two should wait an hour and then follow.
The shadow of one of the cypresses lay across the dry pool. Alfredo placed a pebble on the rim, along into the sunlight. They left when the shadow touched the pebble.
He’d judged it wrong and they were a little too early. He checked the fire with extra care, not because it would make the slightest difference to how things went, but because it might be the last time he’d do it. Annetta handed him a mug and he drank the contents. He’d expected the potion to be dark and bitter, but it looked almost colorless in the gray mug and tasted slightly sweet on the tongue and then sharper at the back of his mouth. He went up to his room, by now so sick with nerves that he couldn’t tell whether the drink was starting to do its work or not. When he went down to supper he found Uncle Gio
rgio already waiting for him. He looked even wearier than he had the evening before.
“You are rested?” he said. “I hope you have an excellent appetite.”
“I don’t know. I had a nice quiet day, but I don’t feel very hungry.”
“You must eat,” snapped Uncle Giorgio.
There was a real sharpness under the words. His nerves must be twanging too, Alfredo realized. Dutifully he put food on his plate, cut off a few small pieces, and started to chew and force his throat to swallow. The moment came like an eruption of the mountain. He flung back his chair, rushed to the window and vomited violently outside. The evening air filled with the vile stench of stomach stuff. When the spasms were past he stayed draped over the sill, shivering and sweating.
“What is this? You have been too long in the sun, you stupid child! What have you eaten?”
Uncle Giorgio’s voice, close above his head, shook with fury. Alfredo pushed himself up from the sill.
“Nothing,” he gasped. “Just what Annetta brought. It tasted fine. And I was careful about the sun. I wore my hat, but mostly I stayed in the shade. I really did.”
“Go to your bed. Put the chamber pot beside you. Can you climb the stair?”
“I think so. …I think it’s all gone, Uncle Giorgio. Out of me, whatever it was. I’ll be all right for Monday, I promise. I will.”
“That had better be the case. Very well. Go to your bed. I will come and see you later.”
Alfredo forced his weak and trembling legs to carry him up the stairs and along to his room, where he took off his shoes, placed the chamber pot handy and clambered into bed fully clothed. Despite that, and the warmth of the evening, spasms of shivering shook him every minute or two. Soon Annetta arrived with a basket containing a couple of stone bottles, a flask and a small bundle wrapped in a cloth. When she slid the bottles in under the bedclothes beside him he discovered they were filled with hot water, almost too warm to touch with bare flesh but wonderfully comforting through his clothes.
“Thanks,” he whispered. “That was worse than I expected. But I think it’s all right. So far.”
She put a finger to her lips, poured something from a jug she’d brought into a mug and placed it on the table beside him. Then she hid the bundle in the cupboard, put her finger to her lips again and left. The drink turned out to be lime water. He sipped a little and lay back.
A little later Uncle Giorgio arrived, still coldly angry but more in control of himself. He felt Alfredo’s forehead, took his pulse and made him stick out his tongue.
“You have a headache?” he asked. “You see correctly, without spots or blurrings? You came here without falling.”
“No. I mean my head’s all right. And my eyes, I think. I felt a bit dizzy climbing the stairs, but it went. I’m better already, just weak and shivery.”
“Tell me everything you have eaten today.”
Alfredo did so, in detail. Uncle Giorgio nodded.
“The plums are the most likely cause,” he said. “Some peasant with unclean hands may have touched them. So at least you ate them recently and the poison may not have worked into your system before you vomited it out. But if your bowels loosen in the night, eat nothing and drink all you can. I will see you in the morning before I go to Mass. You will stay here. Good night.”
Alfredo lay where he was for a while, enjoying the warmth of the stone bottles. The shiverings grew less, and ceased. By nightfall he felt fine, but ravenously hungry. As the last light faded he heard a soft footfall in the corridor outside, so he closed his eyes, slowed his breathing down and lay still. The door creaked gently. The footsteps crossed the room. A bony hand touched his forehead. He didn’t stir or change his breathing until the door had closed again and the footsteps dwindled along the corridor.
Still he waited, but at last rose, went to the cupboard, found Annetta’s bundle by touch and carried it to the window, where he opened it on the window seat, spreading the cloth round it. She’d provided a simple meal, slices of bread and soft cheese. He ate, crouching low over the cloth in case scattered crumbs might betray them when Uncle Giorgio came in the morning. When he’d had enough he carefully wrapped the bundle and put it back in the cupboard. He hadn’t discussed any of this with Annetta—it had all been her idea. So had the plums. If anything went wrong it wouldn’t be her fault.
He undressed, went back to bed and fell almost instantly asleep. It was as if, along with his stomach stuff, he had vomited out all the day’s anxieties and forebodings. He didn’t wake until Annetta opened the door in the morning, well past sunrise.
ANNETTA PUT DOWN THE TRAY SHE WAS CARRYING, made signs to him to stay where he was and put her finger to her lips, then helped him sit up, stuffed an extra pillow behind him and laid the tray across his knees. There wasn’t much on it, just a bowl of thin broth and a single slice of bread. Alfredo was still hungry, but he spun it out, sipping the broth and nibbling the bread, and was only just finishing as Uncle Giorgio arrived.
“Well, I trust you feel better,” he snapped. “You slept well?”
“Yes, thank you, Uncle Giorgio. I feel almost all right. Just a bit feeble. And, er, empty.”
“No more vomiting? No looseness of the bowels?”
“I don’t think so. I haven’t tried yet. There isn’t, er…”
“No doubt. Toni, apparently, has the same sickness, so it will have been the plums that caused it. In an hour’s time you may eat a little more, and again an hour after that. If any sign of the sickness returns, do not eat. Annetta will leave food for you in the breakfast room. Eat nothing else. You understand?”
“Yes, of course. …Can I get up?”
“Yes, but stay in the house, out of the sun. I will see you on my return from Mass.”
He marched out of the room without another word. Alfredo rose, washed and dressed, then finished the remains of last night’s supper, listening intently all the time for the sound of footsteps in the corridor. After that there was nothing to do but wait in his window until Uncle Giorgio left.
All his anxieties came crowding back. His plan was like a chain, each link depending on the one before it. If one link snapped, the plan would fail. What then? Run away, as he had told Annetta? How? Where to? Who on the island would risk the fury of the Master of the Mountain? He tried to force himself to think about the problem, but his mind kept slithering back to the chain, testing it through, link after link after link. And again. And again.
At last Uncle Giorgio appeared from behind the house, already riding his mule, with Annetta striding at his side. Just as he rounded the terrace he turned and looked up at the house. Alfredo waved. Uncle Giorgio raised his hand in brief acknowledgment and headed down the hill. Still Alfredo waited until they had long disappeared among the olive trees, then hurried downstairs.
He found Toni sitting placidly in the kitchen. There was a satchel on the table beside him, which he pushed toward Alfredo with a smile. Alfredo glanced inside. More food.
“Your mother is a marvelous woman,” he told Toni. Toni smiled, but there was no knowing whether he understood the words, or only the tone. Alfredo beckoned to him and led the way out into the yard.
Together they fetched out the two remaining mules and tethered them to separate rings in the stable wall. They gave them nose bags to keep them quiet, and then brought out the two harnesses and the cradle to carry the salamander’s bucket. Alfredo worked out how it assembled and then stood for a while checking round the yard, making as sure as he could that this stage of the plan would really work. The main problem was going to be the weight of the salamander’s bucket, filled with some of the molten mass from the furnace. Strong though Toni was, Alfredo didn’t believe that the two of them could carry it up from the cellars between them, and then lift it into the cradle between the mules. That’s why the second bucket had been so important.
There was nothing more he could think of. He sighed with anxiety and led the way back into the kitchen. The clock said it was still
twenty minutes to go before the start of Mass, so he opened the satchel and forced himself to eat. Toni had no such problems.
With five minutes to go he repacked the satchel, took it out and stowed it in one of the saddlebags, went back to the kitchen, lit a lantern with a spill from the fire and led the way down to the cellar. Toni gazed without interest at the massive door of the furnace chamber, and turned inquiringly to Alfredo. Now came the first true test, the first link in the plan. If this succeeded, there would be no going back. If it failed…
Alfredo put the lantern on the floor, aligned his hands in front of his mouth and moved his fingers over the stops of an imaginary recorder. Toni took his real one from under his smock and put it to his lips. Quietly Alfredo began to sing the old Persian chant of summoning. After the first two notes Toni joined smoothly in.
And an Angel of Fire was there, with them, filling the height and width of the gloomy passage with its blazing presence. Alfredo almost lost the chant, stunned by the sudden nearness of such power, so much stronger, more vivid, than that of the two that Uncle Giorgio had summoned to his rite with the starlings. Now he understood what the notes had meant when they had talked about the difference between the Greater and Lesser Angels. Those two had been of the sort that could be commanded by a man with the Knowledge. But this was indeed one of the Greater Angels—perhaps the same one that had appeared before Toni in the rose garden. They could ask it, but it would choose whether to do what they asked.
The Angel waited, impassive, until the chant ended, and even then seemed to ignore Alfredo. Instead it faced Toni directly, bowed its head and waited again. Toni looked to Alfredo for guidance, and now at last the Angel turned to him. He, too, bowed his head as the Angel had done, placed his finger onto the keyhole of the lock, and spoke the two grating syllables with which Uncle Giorgio had commanded the Lesser Angels to light the star around the brazier. He stood back and watched the Angel reach out an arm and place its hand over the lock. A white light gathered itself inside the Angel’s body, pulsed gently down its arm and settled in a dome of pure heat over the lock. The passage filled with smoke and the stench of burnt timber. The Angel withdrew its arm, turned and bowed to Toni, and vanished.
Tears of the Salamander Page 13