The Black Opera (80 page)

“I wonder?” Conrad said. “Could we use this ship to bombard the Anfiteatro…?”

“Might be outside the range of a sea battery.”

Tullio Rossi buttonholed one of the junior officers, and managed to have the matter discussed between Captain Bernard and King Ferdinand. Conrad left them debating over charts.

Out on deck again, he found himself looking up thousands of feet into the sky.

In the west the day's blue was now only a fringe at the edges of the horizon.

How long before it covers all the sky?

Paolo scrambled over to him, holding on to ropes and rail, to walk the deck.

“Tambora! Conrad,
Tambora!
If the singers from the Prince's Men could sing on a ship there, couldn't we do the same, here?”

JohnJack Spinelli appeared behind her, bedraggled in wet ash that left him the colour of concrete. He broke out into swearing, and the emphatic words halted on a cough. He doubled over, a cloth to his mouth.

Sandrine raised her voice to be heard over wind and wave, creaking oak and manila cordage. “What he means is that this air is full of enough ash to choke a mule! One verse into an aria and our throats would be scraped raw and bloody.”

Conrad watched all three of them amusing themselves with black humour. He rubbed the heels of his hands over his face.

“Padrone?”

He didn't turn to see Tullio. “I got you into this. You, Isaura there, JohnJack who was just dumb enough to want to save me from the Inquisition, Sandrine who's a good friend; even Velluti and Estella and Lorenzo were brought into it because I recommended them.”

He looked up, finding his vision blurring with the aftermath of hemicrania. Tullio Rossi exchanged a look with his sister.

“Tell your brother he's an idiot, Paulo.”

“You're an idiot, Conrad.”

Sandrine grasped the rail as the ship leaned over, and tacked into the harbour. Her eyes were bright, although red-rimmed. She reached out and put her hand on Conrad's shoulder, and squeezed tightly enough that it hurt.

“What he means, Corradino—every one of us volunteered. When this is all over, and you want to indulge in misplaced guilt, we'll indulge
you
. For now… you know who's really to blame. Make sure you won't flinch when it comes to dealing with her.”

Pozzuoli stood deserted, under a cover of grey ash and the startling yellow of erupted sulphur.

Conrad narrowed his eyes, gazing around the harbour. Only a dead overloaded mule bore witness to the locals making their escape.

Paolo stared at the ship's seamen as they threw ropes to the quay-side and moored the
Apollon
temporarily. Conrad came to lean on the rail beside her. He saw her tiny frightened glance.

“Miseno.” He pointed westwards, to where they knew it would be. “Called Cape Misenum in Roman times—”

“Corrado—”

“Pliny was there, at Cape Misenum. It was dark enough that they had to tie pillows and mattresses on their heads when they walked around, because of the falling rocks.”

Paolo-Isaura exclaimed,
“Mattresses?”

She pushed salt-stiff hair out of her eyes. Conrad saw her abandon interest in the frigate's preparations—the
Apollon
was to pull out into the harbour and wait for a signal, or else ride out the earthquake-waves, if that became necessary.

“Mattresses!”
she echoed, sounding almost incensed.

Conrad kept a smile off his face with difficulty, pursuing his distraction for her. “It's what Pliny wrote. Cushions, pillows, mattresses. It was so dark they couldn't see the rocks falling out of the sky, or tiles coming off roofs—or if they were walking into the walls of houses…”

“Oh, come on! Tying a
mattress
on your
head
—!”

A crack and ping echoed around the apparently deserted harbour.

Conrad found himself crouched below the ship's rail, one hand clamped around Paolo's wrist, her body dragged down with him. “Musket fire!”

Paolo-Isaura's hand smacked smartly against his ear.

“Cazzo!”
He let her go. She stayed crouched against him.

Minutes passed. The King's Rifles and the Old Guard, and the
Apollon
's marines, went ashore in a quiet, businesslike way. There was no more shooting.

“Picket line.” Tullio ambled back along the deck, looking dusty, and approaching without using cover.

Conrad slowly stood. “Put out so the Prince's Men will have warning of anyone's approach? They'd want some way to know if they've been followed.”

Under the ash on her cheeks, Paolo was stark white. “They'll know we're coming.” Tullio, unexpectedly reassuring, said, “King's Rifles think they captured all the pickets.”

“Isaura. You won't come,” Conrad decided, abruptly. “You don't have to be afraid—”

“I'm coming with you; I'm
conducting
. I'm not scared for me! You—Tullio—One of them just has to be lucky with a shot!… There's nobles in the Prince's Men; they'll have armed and drilled their own servants. And
they're
men who use hunting rifles as a matter of course!”

“And when was the last time a deer stood to arms behind a barricade and shot back?”

The transvestite young woman grinned.

Conrad didn't want to add to her fear by remarking that the barrels of hunting weapons are rifled to be accurate far beyond a soldier's musket.

“Besides,” he added with calculated scorn, “The nobility were officers in the last war—not men who went sneaking around in the undergrowth, picking off officers as a matter of course…”

Paolo-Isaura gave him a far too knowing look. “Someone made a company of Colonel Alvarez's soldiers disappear. And Commendatore Mantenucci's armed police officers.”

“If they
are
at the Anfiteatro—maybe the Prince's Men have numbers. Or only a good defensive position…” Conrad shrugged, knowing himself to be unconvincing.

Tullio shot a gaze that accurately analysed the two of them.

“Welcome to war.” He managed a sour humour, and acknowledged Paolo. “This is what it's all about—being afraid your mates will cop it.”

Paolo-Isaura's posture straightened, taking on the other man's bravado as if it were infectious. “Somehow I imagined war to be more exciting and less terrifying… More adventurous?”

“Nope. No adventure. Bad rations, lots of walking, puking in a corner with fear, and then lots more walking. Any different in the cavalry, padrone?”

“Lots of riding. Saddle sores. Horses bite, have diseases, fall dead if you so much as look at them, and then they take it out of your pay. No adventure.”

Tullio took up a stolid position at the head of the gangplank, arms folded, ignoring the men of the King's Rifles, and the opera company, as all prepared to
go ashore. “Paolo.”

Paolo-Isaura wrapped her neck-stock carefully over her nose and mouth. It didn't hide the determined expression in her eyes. Her voice came out muffled. “What?”

“I
want you to stay on the ship.”

Conrad snorted, while he wrapped his own neck-stock over his mouth. “Tried that one! I've got a better chance of stopping Vesuvius by sticking my arse in the crater…”

“Please do try,” Isaura muttered sweetly.

Before Tullio could collect himself enough to argue, Paolo strode down the plank and off the
Apollon
.

Sudden afternoon light slanted in under the eruption cloud, making Pozzuoli's buildings stand out as if they were against the blackest rain-cloud. An unexpected roar sounded. Conrad startled.

A brick house at the far end of the harbour slanted—shifted—and the walls finally burst open, as if from some slow inside pressure.

From the ship's deck, Conrad could see black, earth-rimmed lava pushing over the lip of the foundations, very slowly gliding towards the next house.

“That must be from Monte Nuovo,” Sandrine guessed.

Conrad followed her down the gangplank to the harbour.

Roofless buildings stood crushed under grey lava. Trees and bushes stood stripped of their leaves and branches. All white. The ground was hot underfoot—Conrad took it for an illusion, but lifting his feet and touching the underside of his soles showed him it was reality.

The stink of sulphur almost made him vomit.

He found himself—and Paolo—in charge of the opera people. The small knot of people drew apart from the soldiers and marines. Most of them coughed—Brigida Lorenzani with both hands over her face, cheeks turning a purple-red colour.

Conrad climbed down the edge of stonework where the quay ended, and wetted his handkerchief in sea-water. He passed it up to Brigida, and repeated that for as many of the principal singers, chorus, and musicians as he could persuade. Breathing through wet cloth cut down on the dry choking.

One of the oboe players tripped over the stream of boulders that the road out of Pozzuoli had become, and screamed. His hands were red with scalds when he was helped up, and his knees. Conrad borrowed a water bottle from one of the riflemen and shared the water between the singers, before refilling it with sea water to wet down kerchiefs.

He obsessively counted minutes.

“Act Three, scene seven,” a soldier observed.

Startled, Conrad saw it was no rifleman, but Roberto Capiraso, Conte di Argente, in a uniform coat.

Of all of us, I suppose he needs a disguise against the Prince's Men
.

Even covered in ash, without hat, cane, or cloak, Roberto somehow seemed impeccable. He cocked a dark brow. “I told you your face was a book.”

Conrad kicked at congealed grey ash, that ought to look like snow, since it fell like it, but instead resembled rocks and rubble. The falling ash gritted between his teeth. He noted that the corners and rims of Roberto's eyes were red, like everyone else; adding twenty years to his apparent age.

He glanced at Ferdinand, where the King stood with the French officers, apparently arranging order of march.

“Will we get there in time, do you think?”

“I haven't been across here since I was a child—I liked Monte Nuovo, and Solfatara.” Roberto's smile tilted. “If I ever visited the Flavian Amphitheatre, I don't recall it.”

“And you call yourself a Neapolitan Count!”

“Conrad!” Ferdinand waved him forward. “Are your people ready?”

“Yes, sir.” Conrad couldn't help a frown. “Are we certain it's the Flavian Amphitheatre we should be going to?”

Ferdinand gave a slow smile, that altered his bland expression to something rueful.

“A conversation I've just had with Lieutenant Baptiste of the Guard… If nothing else, it's the place where everything disappears. Commendatore Mantenucci, Colonel Alvarez, their men—and any scouts I've sent after them. And now we've met a picket line. They claim to be native Pozzuolans defending their town, but I know the local accent, and they don't have it.”

“Do we know what size force we'll be facing? My people aren't soldiers.”

“Nor should they be.” Ferdinand glanced around the ash-ruined town. “The Prince's Men expect any attack in force to come from the direction of Naples. Their forces are concentrated at Posillipo, and north of there.”

“That's very specific.” Conrad found he didn't care about the etiquette of questioning a king.

Ferdinand gave him a look both practical and ashamed. “One of the pickets was informative when tortured. Several of his compatriots confirmed what he said. I believe, if we have luck, we can get close up to the Anfiteatro before the Prince's Men realise we're here.”

“And then?” It came out as a demand.

I've never had to care for civilians before, in war; I've always been with other soldiers
.

Ferdinand said sympathetically, “That, we'll discuss as we go. We have limited time—very limited.”

Conrad started off to gather up the opera people, and turned back. “Can we be sure they don't have enough men to cover their rear, and the road from Pozzuoli across to Posillipo?”

“I would like to think I'd be notified of so many armed men in my kingdom. Sufficient bribes in suitable places, however…” Ferdinand's gaze sharpened. “No, I have no certain information on that. Without word back from Enrico or Fabrizio—we're going into this completely blind.”