Cry to Heaven (60 page)

But in the arms of others, he had known a healing satisfaction so powerful it had been for him his sanctifying grace.

Sin, that was malice. That was cruelty. It was those men in Flovigo annihilating his unborn sons.

But his love for Guido, his love for the Cardinal, no one would ever convince him this was sin.

Not even in that locked carriage with the toughened and dark-skinned youth had there been sin. Nor had there been sin in Venice in the gondola where little Bettina had put her head against his chest.

Yet he knew it was impossible for him to express these sentiments to a man who was a prince of the church. He could not unite two worlds: the one infinitely powerful and bound to revelation as well as tradition; the other inevitable and irrepressible, holding sway in every shadowy corner of the earth.

It angered him that the Cardinal asked him to do it. And when he saw the defeat and sadness in the Cardinal’s eyes, he felt cut off from the man as though they’d known each other intimately a long, long time ago.

“I cannot
account
for you,” the Cardinal whispered. “You once told me that music was to you something natural that God had loosed into this world. And you, for all your exotic beauty, seem natural, like the blossoms on the vine. Yet you are evil to me, and for you I would have damned my soul for all eternity. I do not understand.”

“Ah, then it is not from me that you seek answers,” Tonio said.

Something flared in the Cardinal’s eyes. He was staring at Tonio’s placid face.

“But you are enough, don’t you see,” the Cardinal said between his teeth, “to drive a man mad!”

He took Tonio by the arms, and his fingers closed on the flesh with uncommon strength.

Tonio breathed deeply, attempting to let this anger pass from him, saying to himself, This little pain is not enough.

“My lord, let me leave you now,” he begged softly. “Because I bear you only love, and want that you should be at peace.”

The Cardinal shook his head. He was glaring at Tonio, and there came from him a low humming sound. His breath was hoarse and his face was slightly flushed. The strength of his grip increased. Tonio’s anger began to mount.

It was infuriating him to be held like this, to feel the man’s urgency and power through his hands.

He was helpless, he was sure of it. And he could remember well enough the strength of these arms that had turned him so easily in bed as if he had been a woman or a young child. He thought of those arms clashing with him in the fencing salon, pushing him in darkened bedchambers, imprisoning him against the leather seat of the carriage, arms that might as well have been the branches of trees, and that smoldering energy that seemed to emanate from the very pores of a man as he sought the evidence of submission in the very midst of passion over and over again.

Tonio’s vision faltered. It seemed he had uttered some desperate sound. And all of a sudden he moved as if he meant to escape the Cardinal, or even to strike him, and he felt that grip infused with an incalculable force. He was as helpless as he imagined. The Cardinal held him so easily he might have broken the bones in his arms.

But the man was stunned. It was as if with this small convulsive gesture Tonio had awakened him and he was staring at Tonio as he might at a frightening child.

“Did you mean to raise your hand to me, Marc Antonio?” he asked as if he feared the answer.

“Oh, no, my lord,” Tonio said in a low voice. “I meant for you to raise your hand to me! Strike me, my lord!” He grimaced, shuddering. “I should like to feel it, that force that I do not understand.” He reached out and clutched at the Cardinal’s shoulders. He held tight to him as if trying to weaken the lean muscularity that was there.

The Cardinal had let him go, and backed away.

“Natural, am I, like the blossoms on the vine?” Tonio whispered. “Oh, if only I understood either of you, what either of you feels. You with your limbs that are weapons against me when I am unarmed, and she with her softness, and that tiny voice like little bells ringing and ringing, and beneath her skirts that secret yielding wound. Oh, if you were not both of you mysteries to me, if I were part of one or the other, or even part of both!”

“You’re speaking madness,” the Cardinal whispered. He put out his hand and felt the side of Tonio’s face.

“Madness?” Tonio murmured under his breath. “Madness! You have forsworn me, in the same breath called me natural and then evil; you’ve called me the thing that drives men mad. What could these words possibly mean to me? How am I to abide them? And yet you say I speak madness. What was the mad oracle of Delphi, but a wretched creature whose limbs had the unfortunate conformation of an object of desire!”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and pressed his hand against his lips as if he meant to stop the flow of words by force.

He was aware that the Cardinal was gazing at him and that the Cardinal had become calm.

The moment lengthened in silence and stillness.

“Forgive me, Marc Antonio,” the Cardinal said slowly in a low voice.

“And why, my lord, for what?” Tonio asked. “Your generosity and your patience even in this?”

The Cardinal shook his head as though communing with himself.

Reluctantly, he took his eyes off Tonio and walked a few steps towards his desk before he looked back. He held his silver crucifix in one hand, and the candlelight brightened the red watered taffeta of his robe. His eyes were a narrow gleam beneath their smooth lids, and his face was ineffably sad.

“How appalling it is,” he whispered, “that I can better live with my self-denial now that I know you feel such pain.”

T
HAT NIGHT
, when Guido came home from the Contessa’s villa, the Cardinal summoned him to ask if he needed any particular assistance now that the opera season would soon begin.

He assured Guido he would be at the theater this year, though he’d never rented a box in the past. And after the opening performance, he would hold a ball at his house if Guido so desired.

Guido was as always deeply touched by the Cardinal’s kindness. But then he asked in a spare and straightforward manner if it were within the Cardinal’s power to provide Tonio with a pair of armed guards.

He explained in the same manner that Tonio had been banished from the Veneto when he became a castrato three years before. His was an old family; there was some mystery surrounding it all, though Guido knew nothing about it. And a great many Venetians were coming to Rome.

The Cardinal thought about this for a moment and then nodded.

“I have heard these stories.” He sighed. It would be no problem whatsoever to have a pair of bravos accompany Marc Antonio wherever he went. The Cardinal knew little of such matters; but there were many gentlemen about him who knew a great deal. “We will manage this without consulting Marc Antonio,” he offered. “And that way, he will not become alarmed.”

Guido couldn’t conceal his relief as it was his strong suspicion that Tonio would refuse such protection were he asked.

He kissed the Cardinal’s ring and struggled to express his thanks.

The Cardinal was always considerate and kind. But before dismissing Guido, he put to him this question:

“Is Marc Antonio likely to do well on the stage?”

When he saw the consternation in Guido, he hastened to explain he knew nothing of music. He could not judge Tonio’s voice.

Guido told him confidently, almost stridently, that Tonio was at this time the greatest singer in Rome.

But when Guido returned to his rooms, he was more than disappointed to find that Tonio was not at home.

He needed Tonio just now. He needed the comfort of his arms.

Paolo was sound asleep. The rooms were full of moonlight, and Guido, too weary and anxious to work, merely sat for a long time by himself.

Tonio had gone directly from the Cardinal’s rooms to the fencing salon, where after a few inquiries, he learned the address of the Florentine, Count Raffaele di Stefano, who had been his fencing partner so often in the past.

It was dark when he reached the house, and the Count was not alone. Several of his friends, all of them obviously wealthy, idle, and full of recklessness, were dining with him, while a young castrato, got up as a woman, sang and played the lute.

This was one of those creatures with the breasts of a woman, and they were showed to superb advantage by the cut of a gawdy orange dress.

The table was littered with roast fowl and mutton, and the men had the belligerence of those who had been drinking for days on end.

The castrato who sported hair as long and full as a woman’s challenged Tonio to sing, saying he was sick of hearing about Tonio’s voice.

Tonio stared at this creature. He stared at the men. He stared at Count di Stefano, who had stopped eating and was watching him almost anxiously, and then Tonio rose to go.

But Count di Stefano came after him at once. He gave his friends leave to stay the night in the banquet hall if they wanted to, and then he urged Tonio up the stairs.

*  *  *

When the door of the bedchamber had been bolted, Tonio stood very still looking at the bolt. The Count had gone to light a candle and now the lights swelled evenly throughout the room. It showed the massive bed with its heavily worked posts. Beyond the open windows hung the giant moon.

The Count’s round face had a maniacal seriousness to it, his glossy black curls making him look Semitic, his heavy shaven beard a veritable crust on his chin.

“I’m sorry my friends offended you,” he said quickly.

“Your friends didn’t offend me,” Tonio answered calmly. “But I suspect that eunuch downstairs has engendered some expectations I cannot meet. I want to go now.”

“No!” the Count whispered almost desperately. His eyes were glazed and strange, and he approached Tonio as if propelled to do so, drawing so close that some touch was inevitable, and then he lifted his hand and let it hover in the air, the thick fingers spread out.

He looked half mad. As mad as the Cardinal had ever looked, as mad as the eldest and most grateful of Tonio’s lovers had ever appeared. He had no pride. He hadn’t the haughtiness of the laborer Tonio had picked up in the streets.

Tonio reached for the door, but his passion was rising, making him reckless and as half mad as this man.

He turned around and let the breath hiss between his lips as the Count caught hold of him, and held him against the door.

It was rare, exquisitely rare, because he could not command himself.

And for so long it seemed all his passion had been at his command! Be it with Guido, or with any of those he selected for himself like so many cups of wine, and now he was lost in this, knowing full well that he was under the Count’s roof, in his power, as he had never been in the power of any young and unrestrained lover before.

The Count ripped off his own shirt, and slipping his hand down the front of his own breeches broke them open as well. His dark stubble of a beard actually caused Tonio pain as he mouthed Tonio’s neck, and then he pulled almost like a child on Tonio’s coat, tearing loose his sword.

The weapon clattered to the floor.

But when the Count pressed his naked body against Tonio
and felt me stiletto in Tonio’s shirt, he left it there. He pulled Tonio to him moaning, his organ rising stout and cloven at the tip.

“Give it to me, let me have it,” Tonio breathed, and going down on his knees, took the organ into his mouth.

It was midnight when Tonio rose to go, and nothing stirred in the house. The Count lay naked on the white sheets except for the gold rings on the fourth and fifth fingers of his left hand.

Tonio, looking down at him, touched the mask of silky skin that overlay his nose and cheeks, and silently went out.

He ordered his carriage to the Piazza di Spagna.

And when he arrived at the base of the high Spanish Steps, he sat for a long time gazing out of the window at those who passed in the dark. High above him against the moonlit sky were many lighted windows, but he knew no houses here, no names.

A passing lantern shone for a moment in his face before the man who carried it turned the beam politely away.

It seemed he slept for a while, he did not know. He awoke suddenly, feeling
her
presence, tried to recapture a dream in which they had been together in fast conversation, he trying vainly to explain something to her, and she saddened and threatening to draw away.

He realized he was in the Piazza di Spagna He had to go home. And just for a moment he was not certain where that was.

He smiled. He gave the driver the word, and wondering in a half sleep why Bettichino had not come, he realized with a start the opera would open in less than two weeks.

W
ORD CAME TO THEM
on Christmas Day that Bettichino had arrived.

The air was purified with the first touch of frost, and full of the ringing of all the church bells of Rome. Anthems carried from the choir lofts, and children preached from the pulpit as was the custom. And the Baby Jesus, resplendent amid dizzying tiers of candles, lay beaming from a thousand magnificent cribs.

Guido, discovering the violinists at the Teatro Argentina were masterly musicians, had rewritten all the string parts. And he only smiled when Bettichino, claiming a slight indisposition, had begged to be excused the courtesy of a visit. Would Guido merely send him the score?

Guido was ready for all difficulties. He knew the rules of the game, and had given the great singer three arias over and above those given to Tonio, with which Bettichino could well show off his tricks. He wasn’t surprised when in twenty-four hours he had the score returned with all the singer’s graces neatly copied in. He could now adjust the accompaniment. And though there were no compliments on the composition, there were no complaints.

He knew the talk in the cafés had reached its highest pitch. And everyone was frequenting Christina Grimaldi’s new studio, where she talked of nothing but Tonio. The theater would be packed.