6 - Whispers of Vivaldi (24 page)

The next day, toward evening, a boy from the theater delivered a message that shook me out of my doldrums. The Teatro San Marco was dark that night, for the first time since Tedi’s murder. This I knew because Gussie had broken his resolve. Curious, he and Annetta had attended a performance of
The False Duke
and mingled with acquaintances backstage. He reported that most of the company had been aghast when the Savio refused to close even one night in respect for the murder of its longtime prima donna, right on the premises, no less. But Gussie also had to admit that the Savio alla Cultura had made a shrewd business decision. The latest scandal had entirely replaced the furor over Angeletto, and Gussie judged that both
The False Duke
and its star performer were well received.

It was the star who had sent the message. In the short note, Angeletto begged for my help with another difficult passage.

I crumpled the page on a rush of anger. Hot blood suddenly coursed through my veins. Yes, I had a few things to say to Angeletto—none of them calculated to perfect that lady’s singing. I tossed the balled-up paper into the waste bucket the maid had left in the hall. Making a quick grab for my cloak, I set off without a word to anyone. What I had to say wouldn’t take long. I would be back in time for supper.

Chapter Twenty-four

Venice existed in a cold twilight mist. Her humped roof tiles glistened with damp, and the strains of a brass band on the piazza were muted and distant. As I approached the theater where I’d spent so much of my adult life, I shivered within my cloak. I’d come to ask the real Maria Luisa Vanini why she thought she should be allowed to enjoy operatic wealth and fame without making the ultimate sacrifice that had been forced on me and every other castrato who had ever poured out our hearts in song.

Finding the stage door locked, I thumped on it with the side of my fist. Presently I heard uneven, clumping footsteps approaching from inside. Those couldn’t be Angeletto’s light steps. Before that thought fully formed, a prickling sense of danger shot up my spine. I backed away and was poised to leave when I heard a familiar voice through the stout door planks.

“Just a moment…having trouble with the bolt.”

Giuseppe Balbi! Perhaps the violinist had agreed to also assist Angeletto by providing accompaniment for the tutoring session the singer had requested. I relaxed as the door swung inward and Balbi’s slight form appeared. His expression was unusually severe, and I was surprised to see him in performance attire: an immaculate black coat and breeches, white shirt, and neatly folded neckcloth. His own silver-streaked hair was tied back and lightly powdered.

“How good of you to come, Tito. If you would just step onto the stage…” Balbi’s pale hand sketched an expansive arc. “The opera is about to begin.”

“Opera?” I asked as I passed Balbi and crossed the dusty boards. I thought Angeletto merely wanted some coaching. My eyebrows pinched together. Did the singer intend to perform an aria fully costumed, implementing his full stage business?

I stepped onto the glowing stage. Every footlight and wing light had been set aflame, and the scenery for Act Three of
The False Duke
was in place. The backdrop portrayed a rocky coastline. At its base, a triple series of wide rollers was covered with blue-green fabric that stood in for ocean billows. They would appear quite realistic when in motion, but now the silk lay limp and dusty. The Savio’s triumph, the tall-masted ship that split in two as it foundered on the rocks, dominated the center stage.

“What’s going on here? Where’s Angeletto?” I asked Balbi as I turned my back on the scenery and gazed out toward the empty auditorium. One fuzzy point of light beamed out of the blackness; three tapers branched from a candelabrum beside the harpsichord in the orchestra enclosure. Their wicks must have been lit within the past hour. The tapers hadn’t burned long enough to perceptibly reduce their length.

“Where is Angeletto?” I asked again. My voice sounded hollow, as if I were calling into the mouth of a cave.

Receiving no answer, I glanced around. Balbi had disappeared. I sighed and stepped closer to the footlights. All was quiet. Not even a mouse’s footfall disturbed the all-encompassing silence, yet my ears relived the waves of cheers and applause that had greeted me in times past. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back. In that instant, I’d just sounded the last note of a spectacular aria, and Maestro Torani was waiting in the wings to gather me into his arms. I could almost feel the weight of a royal cape on my shoulders, an elaborate wig and helmet on my head, a sword in its baldric pulling my shoulder down.

For what happened next, I have nothing to blame except my own woolgathering and misplaced trust.

From behind, clattering steps and a blur of motion snapped me back to reality. Something very hard struck the back of my head.

The last thing I heard was my own hoarse cry of pain as I crumpled to the floor. Stars danced in front of my eyes, then nothing.

***

Music prodded me to consciousness—terrible, terrifying music—a harpsichord being attacked with the frenzy of a demon player. Gradually, I realized that I was on the ship’s deck, ten feet or more above the stage floor. Coarse ropes held me fast against…something. I strained against my bonds but was unable to do more than turn my head from side to side.

Meanwhile, the music jangled on, faster and faster. With a sickening jolt, I recognized the overture to
Prometheus
. Its composer, Balbi, must be the demon at the keyboard.

After shaking off a wave of dizziness, I realized that both of my arms had been stretched painfully back over the ship’s steering wheel and lashed to the wooden spokes. I was upright, but forced up onto my toes with my ankles tied together, with no way to free myself. The mast with its flaccid sail riggings stretched above me into the darkness above the stage.

Marshaling the entire force of my lungs, I bellowed for help. Perhaps someone would hear. That slender hope evaporated as manic laughter rang out over the music.

I could expect no rescue. Balbi had clearly tricked me to the theater with the purported note from Angeletto, and I’d tossed that note away where no one at home would find it. As for Angeletto, she was probably resting in her family’s quarters at the Ca’Passoni, totally unaware of being used as bait.

It was just me and Balbi, then, and I had to figure out what to do fast. The harpsichord had fallen silent and the musician was climbing the stairs to the stage. From the corner of my eye, I saw him scurry across the stage and pass behind the ship, then I heard him climbing up the steep ramp to the deck.

I would not have recognized the man who came to stand before me. The round head that usually bobbed so genially was shaking with anger. The once gentle eyes glittered with liquid hatred, and deep-cut lines etched his brow. Balbi seemed to have gone mad.

Or been possessed by something not quite human.

Though his melody had hinted at the source of his torment, I decided to appeal to our shared past. I panted out, “Balbi. Giuseppe. Why are you doing this? I’m your friend, Tito. We’ve made music together for many years.”

He’d been holding something behind his back. Without a word, he whipped his arm around and shook a long-bladed stiletto just inches from my face. Then he retreated a step. Still silent, he ripped my linen shirt wide open, exposing my chest, and with focused intensity, used his blade to etch a vicious path along the base of my right rib cage.

I couldn’t help from crying out. Blood streamed down my flank, tears of pain down my cheeks.

His voice erupted like Vesuvius. “Be silent, coward! You are not my friend—you’re a vile, sneaking reptile. All along it was you who scuttled my opera. You—you—you! I thought Maestro Torani had thrust
Prometheus
aside for
The False Duke
. But now I know the truth. You treated my masterpiece—the labor of years, the treasure of my heart—like a load of refuse.”

“No, no,” I cried on a gasp. “I only meant for Maestro Torani to postpone
Prometheus
until later in the season. I admire your composition. It’s just that for Carnival we needed something revolutionary to fill the theater. The San Marco was in danger of losing Senate support.”

“I know all about that.” His mud-colored eyes never left mine. His tongue flicked around damp lips. “My
Prometheus
was the perfect opera to save the theater—but you ruined everything—you replaced it with Rocatti’s drivel.” The blade pricked my skin once more.

“No, Rocatti didn’t write
The False Duke
. It was composed by Antonio Vivaldi…when he was a young man.” At least I managed to surprise my tormentor into dropping his blade. I heard it hit the deck boards.

“You’re lying.”

“It’s no lie—I’ve seen the original manuscript with Vivaldi’s signature.”

“Then why does Niccolo Rocatti take credit for it?”

I groaned. “It’s a long story with many twists and turns. Untie me and I’ll explain.” Noting a flicker of indecision in his expression, I ventured a feeble smile. “There’s no shame in being temporarily supplanted by Venice’s revered maestro. Who could hope to top Vivaldi, after all?”

Balbi stooped to retrieve the stiletto. Had the mention of Vivaldi saved my bacon? It was a bare possibility. And short-lived.

As he straightened, Balbi made a sudden lunge and lodged the blade’s point under my breast bone. Tensing my abdomen, I shrank back as much as I was able. “I don’t care who wrote the foul thing,” he growled. “Maestro Vivaldi had his time in the sun. My turn had arrived.
Prometheus
would have pushed me to the pinnacle of success—if not for you.”

I cried out as the knife point pierced my skin. Then, in desperation: “Dio mio, do you mean to murder me as well as Maestro Torani?”

Balbi drew back. Blood—my blood—stained his blade. Yet the violinist sent me a wounded look and challenged me accusingly, “You believe I killed the maestro?”

“Why not?” I shouted hoarsely. “If you once believed Torani cancelled your precious opera? For all I know you overheard his insulting comments at the reception—you’d come back to the salon from the kitchen by the time he praised
The False Duke
as a musical feast and disparaged
Prometheus
as gruel. An hour later, he was dead.”

Balbi’s eyes narrowed to slits. He asked in a broken whisper, “Maestro Torani called my opera…gruel?”

I nodded hesitatingly, now certain that he hadn’t heard Torani spouting off. Not even a trained actor could have faked that look of heartrending disillusionment and dismay.

“I didn’t kill the maestro.” Balbi rubbed his brow like a man with a mounting fever. “Every day while I led the orchestra in rehearsing
The False Duke
, I held my tongue. Though every aria was like a dagger in my heart, I screwed my patience to the sticking point, determined to do my duty. I’ve murdered no one—until now.”

“Now…” My voice trembled. I was growing weak, fuzzy-
headed.

“Now. Yes.” He lowered his hand and drew himself up. He addressed me smoothly, as if we were discussing nothing more serious than the proper phrasing of a musical passage. “I’m tired of playing other men’s inferior compositions—tired of waiting for
Prometheus
to be recognized for what it is—finished with being taken for granted. Good old Balbi! Yes, I’ve heard you call me thus. Well, good old Balbi is going to cut out your liver. Just as the impertinent Prometheus had his liver pecked out by a giant eagle, my little darling”—he waved the blade triumphantly—“will return again and again to peck at your side. While you bleed to death, you may listen to my glorious opera and think on what a fool you were to thwart my life’s work.”

“Balbi, you must listen—Prometheus stole fire from the gods on Mt. Olympus, but I’ve done nothing—nothing except try to take care of the Teatro San Marco as best I could. For the love of God, man, I don’t deserve this.”

His face hardened. He gazed at me with the cold eyes of a madman. “You deserve nothing less.”

After delivering another painful jab to my side, Balbi scrambled off the deck, trotted across the stage, and made his way back down to the harpsichord where he clawed at the instrument like a rabid animal. Somewhere in that clash of notes was an aria from
Prometheus
.

I hung my head. Beads of sweat ran down my face, joining my tears. My heart hammered against my ribs. Shivering from the pain spreading throughout my midsection, I wondered how I could have missed the simmering anger and resentment that had transformed this mild man into a savage. I also wondered how long it would be before Balbi worked himself up to deliver the mortal cut. He had deceived me utterly, and I had no way of predicting how long my torture would last. I was helpless.

Or was I? Out of empty air, near my ear, Liya’s calm voice seemed to speak: “Hold on, my love. There is a way out of any predicament, if you have the courage to find it.”

Liya! And Titolino! If I couldn’t manage to save myself, I would never see my family again.

I forced myself to put the pain aside and take measured, if not deep, breaths.
Take stock
, I told myself.
As long as Balbi is at the keyboard, you’re safe
.

All right. I was secured to a ship’s wheel at a very uncomfortable angle. I’d tried to wiggle free, tried to pick at the knots, but Balbi had bound me too tightly. The question of precisely how the slight violinist had accomplished that—indeed, how he had managed to drag me up the steep ramp at the rear of this set piece—flashed through my mind. It was quickly replaced by the memory of Aldo demonstrating how the deck split in half during the great shipwreck. I was actually draped over the wheel that controlled the mechanism. If I could set it into action the next time Balbi came on deck, the little man would be dashed to the…

My blood froze. The music had stopped.

Panicked, I stretched and clawed until my right hand closed around a stout spoke. My left hand couldn’t make the connection, but I was able to press my left shoulder blade onto a protruding knob.

But
what was the correct sequence? One notch right and two left? Or was it the reverse?
I was exhausted, burning with pain, unable to decide.

The ramp’s crossties creaked. Balbi was coming, and I had to act one way or the other. Placing my fate in the hands of the Blessed Mother, I pushed and pulled, cranking the stubborn wheel to the right until I felt it catch.

A swell of triumph swept through me.

As Balbi passed through the gate in the ship’s railing, I shifted my weight, pushing to the left. The mechanism refused to budge. The violinist drew closer, staring at the stiletto in his hand, muttering under his breath. With an agonizing effort, I coaxed a trace of movement from the wheel.

Still Balbi advanced, one deliberate step after the other, intent on his insane purpose—until he stopped and stood stock still, staring upwards. We’d both heard his name sounding in a disembodied, rumbling basso—
Balbi
.

My head jerked around. Someone else was in the theater—up on the catwalk above the stage. Of course, I should have realized it at once. The small-statured Balbi could not have accomplished moving my deadweight onto the deck.

I peered into the shadows overhead but saw only dangling ropes, hanging scenery, and crisscrossing platforms. “Who’s there?” I cried. “Show yourself.”