Tears of the Salamander (14 page)

The week inched by. Alfredo teased obsessively away at the sheet of notes about the salamanders. A few of the more carefully written bits began to make sense:
They have great knowledge, but little power. …Of all things concerning
fire, though far from the island, they know through the fires within the earth
. …(Ah, so they could after all have known what had happened in the bakehouse.)
…not things to come…cannot see into the minds of men…not like the Angels of Fire, both Lesser and Greater. These have many powers…One with the Knowledge can command the Lesser Angels, but neither the Greater, nor the salamanders. …

When he had unraveled all he could he started to read his way slowly on through Livius’s history. At other times he studied old musical scores and tried to learn some of the easier pieces on the recorder, so that he could teach them to Toni. Or he walked the mountainside, until he could join Toni in the rose garden each afternoon, when for an hour or more they improvised duets together and he could forget about his hopes and his fears. He didn’t run away from these. Indeed he tried to face them, mostly when he was sitting in the kitchen before supper while Toni ate and Annetta worked at the stove.

It was easier when they were there, because they reminded him of what sort of man Uncle Giorgio must be to have used them so, as if they existed entirely for his own purposes, and nothing else mattered. A man like that might well have used and destroyed his own brother with his family, and the crew of the
Bonaventura,
without a thought, simply because it suited him. It didn’t
prove
he had—it just made it more likely—and more likely too that he was planning to use Alfredo in the same kind of way. It was going to happen next Monday as part of the Second Great Work.

How could he avoid taking part in that work? Run away? Where? Who would dare help him hide from the Master of the Mountain? How could he be sure his uncle didn’t have the power to find him, wherever he hid? And then he would have betrayed part of his own secret knowledge—and his one hope lay in his uncle’s not suspecting how much he knew. Kill himself, then? If the worst came to the worst, perhaps, but how? If he could find a cliff somewhere to throw himself over…

No. There must be a better way, if only he could think of it.

On the Tuesday morning Annetta came to his room early and laid out his church clothes for him. After breakfast he sang the chant again for Uncle Giorgio, who this time muttered a few words almost as soon as he’d begun. There were no interruptions from the Angels. Then they rode down the hill to the town. Uncle Giorgio stopped at a large, newish house opposite the church, where they were evidently expected, for a groom from the inn was waiting for them and led the mules away. Uncle Giorgio was raising his cane to rap on the door when it was opened by a wheezing old man in black, wearing a tatty wig, who showed them through a musty hallway, opened a door and announced, or rather muttered, “Signor Giorgio di Sala with the young gentleman, sir,” then stood aside for them and slipped away.

Just as they went into the room Uncle Giorgio gripped Alfredo’s shoulder and leaned heavily on it. He tottered forward.

A man rose from behind a table and started to greet them, but checked himself, stared for a moment and rushed round, pulled out a chair and helped Uncle Giorgio to settle into it, then went back to his place. He was younger than Alfredo would have expected, but stout and with heavy, dark features. His manner, like the priest’s last Sunday, was both fawning and wary.

“Signor di Sala,” he said. “I am much honored. You are …you are not well?”

“I have been stronger,” said Uncle Giorgio dismissively. “You received my note?”

“Indeed, indeed. And this is the young gentleman who is now to be your heir?”

“My nephew, Alfredo,” said Uncle Giorgio. “His parents died tragically a month ago, and he is now in my care. The last, for the moment, of our line. Alfredo, this is my friend Signor Pozzarelli, who looks after the legal side of our affairs. You will have much to do with him in time to come.”

“Indeed, indeed. I am gratified to meet you, Signor Alfredo,” said Signor Pozzarelli as they shook hands. “But let us hope it will be many years before that is the case.”

“We are in God’s hands, Signor Pozzarelli,” said Uncle Giorgio. “And as you see I have not been well. The journey to fetch my nephew taxed my strength, and I was near to death by the time I returned. I am not yet fully recovered, and the malady could strike again at any time. We must put my earthly affairs in order without delay.”

“Your earthly…?” Signor Pozzarelli began, and stopped himself. “Er…hum…a little wine in honor of the occasion? Now, let me see, let me see…”

He rang a silver handbell, then fussed with papers on his table, recovering his composure. Uncle Giorgio watched him, smiling thinly. Alfredo was puzzled. He had a feeling Uncle Giorgio was teasing the attorney, but why was he pretending to be ill and mouthing these pious phrases about his own death if in a few day’s time he was going to start living forever? And what had Signor Pozzarelli been going to say when he stopped himself?

A servant woman came in with a tray—glasses, a wine flask and a jug. Signor Pozzarelli poured two glasses of wine and glanced at Uncle Giorgio.

“A little for my nephew—as you say, in honor of the occasion,” said Uncle Giorgio, still with that teasing note, so the attorney poured a few sips for Alfredo and filled the larger glasses from the jug with what turned out to be lime water, cool and fresh. The wine was dark and sweet—the best in the attorney’s cellar, Alfredo guessed.

Signor Pozzarelli drew a chair to the table for Alfredo, picked up a double sheet of parchment and cleared his throat.

“The terms, as you suggested, are the same as for the last will—nineteen years ago, I see—save of course for the beneficiary. The list of your properties has been kept up to date, as you know, and can simply be transferred to the new will. And there is the matter of a guardian still to be settled. Last time my father had the honor…”

“Your respected father is now almost as old as I am, and we must look to the future. I suggest that this time it should be yourself, if you will be so kind as to take up the burden of my nephew’s earthly affairs. All else of course is
in eternal hands, those hands which finally take care of all things, both earthly and beyond.”

“Of course, of course,” agreed Signor Pozzarelli hastily. “I shall be much honored by the task.”

This time Alfredo got it. Beneath Uncle Giorgio’s teasing tone there was something else, a note of threat, quiet but confident. And beneath the attorney’s gabbled reply there was awareness of that threat, and fear of it. And Uncle Giorgio hadn’t said the obvious “earthly and heavenly,” but used the strange phrase “earthly and beyond.” He was talking not of the justice of God, but of the powers of the Master of the Mountain, which his nephew would inherit. No attorney in his right mind would be tempted to swindle even a child who possessed those powers.

Signor Pozzarelli wrote briefly on the document, then read it through in a solemn voice. Though it was quite short, it was mostly incomprehensible. The only thing that was clear to Alfredo was that just three people were named in it, Uncle Giorgio, who was making the will; Signor Pozzarelli, who was to be guardian; and Alfredo himself, who was getting everything. There was nothing for Annetta, nothing to take care of poor Toni, Uncle Giorgio’s own son. Of course Alfredo would look after them, but how could anyone be certain of that? If only for form’s sake surely…But no. Uncle Giorgio didn’t think like that.

When he’d finished reading, Signor Pozzarelli rang his bell again, and the clerk and a gardener came to witness Uncle Giorgio’s signature. The gardener was unable to write his name, so signed with a thumbprint. Uncle Giorgio gave each of them a silver coin and rose as they
left. Alfredo realized that Signor Pozzarelli was looking expectantly at him. Alfredo pulled himself together.

“I must…must thank my uncle for his great generosity,” he stammered. “I, er, will try to prove worthy of my inheritance and…and our name.”

“I have no doubt that that will prove to be the case,” said Uncle Giorgio, still with the same odd tone, as if the words had an extra meaning that only he knew. He signed to Alfredo, who helped him stand and then took some of his weight while Signor Pozzarelli showed them out of the house with obvious relief, bowing his farewells several times more than was necessary.

Uncle Giorgio seemed to recover as soon as the door closed.

“Lawyers are capable of infinite delay,” he remarked. “There is no harm in persuading one that the case may be urgent.”

He sounded really pleased with himself. He stood for a while on the doorstep, like a cat purring in the strong noon sun, while Alfredo once again wondered what it must be like to have everyone you met terrified of you. But Uncle Giorgio actually seemed to enjoy it. Strange.

Now he stalked off toward the inn, but started to lean on his stick before they reached it. Alfredo had been expecting that they would simply collect the mules and ride home, but the landlord was waiting at the door, bowing and smiling but still giving the impression that he would have preferred to run and hide in his darkest cellar.

“I trust the signor is in good health,” he gabbled.

“Feeling my age, feeling my age,” said Uncle Giorgio,
speaking almost affably. “I shall need your arm up the stairs, I fear.”

The landlord helped him climb slowly to a room overlooking the harbor, where a table was laid for two.

Uncle Giorgio straightened as soon as they were alone.

“A feast in celebration of the occasion,” he said genially.

Alfredo’s heart sank. How could he eat a feast of celebration with this man whom he now believed to be a monster, a murderer? Sitting in the attorney’s office, pretending to be honored and grateful about what his uncle was doing for him—that wasn’t difficult. In a grim sense he’d almost enjoyed it, because each little deception of Uncle Giorgio became part of his secret knowledge. It was all right eating together up at the house, where often his uncle read throughout the meal and scarcely said a word, so that they might just as well have been eating in separate rooms, and where even when they talked their words seemed to be full of secret meanings. But here, like this? He thought of name-days at home, the joy, the family love, Mother’s pride in what she’d prepared for the occasion. That had been true celebration, not this. The food would be sawdust in his mouth, tasteless and unswallowable, and he must pretend to enjoy it.

No, he would not think like that. Soon, soon, before next Monday, he would find proof of what the salamanders had told him. And then…then somehow—something deep and savage stirred in him—then he would take vengeance.

They sat and the meal was brought, olives and bread and oil, of course, and grilled sardines caught fresh that
morning, and a salad of wild leaves from the mountain, and a tender young pullet roasted on a bed of herbs, and a strange, sweet custard, and three kinds of wine, and lime water better than the attorney’s—indeed the sort of meal Mother would have prepared for a name-day.

Alfredo settled down to enjoy it, savoring every mouthful with the thought of his vengeance. Vengeance, he discovered, makes an excellent savor. So he ate with gusto until Uncle Giorgio pulled him up.

“We must feed you up but not make you ill,” he said, lightly enough—but still Alfredo seemed to hear the undertone of another kind of meaning. This time, though, he could guess what it was. To Uncle Giorgio each mouthful he ate, each sip he drank, each breath he drew, was not for his own pleasure, but a preparation for next Monday and his mysterious destiny.

He thought about this as they rode up the hill and wondered if he could starve himself until he was too weak to do whatever his uncle expected of him on Monday. Not easily, if he was watched all the time as he ate. But…