The Devil in Music

The
Devil in Music by Kate Ross

Also
by Kate Ross

Cut
to the Quick

A
Broken Vessel

Whom
the Gods Love

THE
DEVIL IN MUSIC

Kate
Ross

Hodder
& Stoughton

Copyright
1997 Kate Ross

First
published in the United States of America in 1997

by
Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

First
published in Great Britain in 1997 by Hodder and Stoughton

A
division of Hodder Headline PLC

The
right of Kate Ross to be identified as the Author of the Work has
been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.

10
987654321

All
rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be
otherwise ckculated in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All
characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to
real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A
CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British
Library

ISBN
0 340 64925 9

Printed
and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham PLC, Chatham, Kent

Hodder
and Stoughton

A
division of Hodder Headline PLC

338
Euston Road

London
NW1 3BH

A
NOTE ON THE MILANESE DIALECT

For
much of this book, readers are asked to pretend that the characters
are speaking Italian or, more precisely, Milanese, the old dialect of
Lombardy. A few Milanese words are used, such as signor for signore,
popola for signorina, and palazz for palazzo. But by and large I've
chosen not to throw foreign words into the dialogue, except when they
are mixed into an otherwise English conversation. My reasoning was
that those of the characters who speak Milanese would not sound
"foreign" to one another.

CHARACTERS

The
Malvezzi family

LODOVICO
MALVEZZI .....................a Milanese marquis (marchese)

BEATRICE
MALVEZZI his wife

RINALDO
MALVEZZI ........................Lodovico's son by a previous
marriage FRANCESCA ARGENTI MALVEZZI his wife

NICCOLO
MALVEZZI}

BIANCA
MALVEZZI} .........................their children

CARLO
MALVEZZI............................Lodovico's younger brother, a
count (come)

Malvezzi
servants

ERNESTO
TORELLI ..........................Lodovico's manservant

GUIDO
GENNARO ............................Carlo's manservant

NINA
CASSERA................................Beatrice's maid

BRUNO
MONTI}

TOMMASO
AGOSTI}.........................footmen

MATTEO
LANDI............gardener of Villa Lealta

LUCIA
LANDIhis daughter

ABB
MOROSI.................................tutor to Niccolo and Bianca

The
musical world

"ORFEO"
.........................................an English tenor

PIETRO
BRAN DOLING

VALERIA
NO")......... male soprano

MAESTRO
FILIPPO DONATI ..............a singing teacher and composer ANTONIO
FARE SE ToN io Maestro Donati's "Eyes"

(1821)
SEBASTIANO BORDA Maestro Donati's "Eyes"

(1825)
GASTON DE LA MARQUE....a dilettante music scholar

British
visitors to Lombardy

JULIAN
KESTREL...a gentleman

THOMAS
STOKES DIPPER" his manservant

DUNCAN
MACGREGOR....................MT. Kestrel's friend; a surgeon THE
HON. BEVERLEY ST. CARR........a young man on the Grand

Tour
HUGO FLETCHER his tutor

Inhabitants
of Solaggio

FRBEDRICH
VON KRAUSS garrison commander

BENEDETTO
RUGA. mayor (podesta)

DON
CRiSTOFORO...........................parish priest

LUIGI
CURIONI ...............................physician

MARIANNA
FRASCANI ......................landlady of the Nightingale

ROSA
FRASCANI ..............................her daughter

Miscellaneous

GIAN
GALEAZZO RAVERSI ................a Milanese count (come),

friend
of Lodovico Malvezzi CAM ILLO PALMIERIthe Malvezzi family lawyer

ALFONSO
GRiMANi..........................a police official commissa rio

PAOLO
ZANETnhis clerk and interpreter

PART

ONE

March
1821

He
loves to sit and hear me sing, Then, laughing, sports and plays with
me; Then stretches out my golden wing, And mocks my loss of liberty.

William
Blake Song

Lodovico
Malvezzi signed his name with a flourish and sat back to read what he
had written:

Castello
Malvezzi 13 March 1821 Signora,

My
son has very properly passed your letter on to me. Neither he nor I
can be moved by such appeals. I swear by God and the Madonna that
you will not see Niccolo and Bianca or hold any communication with
them, as long as you remain with Signor Valeriano. I think you know
that I am a man of my word.

You
say that they are your children that in charity to them, if not to
you, I should not keep them from their mother. I say that they now
have only one parent: my son, who has not disgraced them. My God, do
you think I would allow those precious children the blood of my
blood, the sole hopes of my line to fall into the hands of a woman
who has brought infamy on their name? My one consolation is that,
situated as you are, you cannot bring into the world bastards whom
they must own as brothers or sisters.

I
might have known that, as soon as Rinaldo returned from his travels,
you would turn up and try to come round him with your prayers and
persuasions. I understand that you and your friend have even had the
audacity to take up residence just across the lake from my castle.
(I use the word "friend," not out of any consideration for
your feelings, but because to call him your lover

would
be an outrage against nature.) Your hopes are vain, and your journey
from Venice useless. Rinaldo will not see you, and my servants know
that anyone who admits you to my house or breathes a word to you of
the children will feel the full weight of my displeasure.

If
your punishment seems harsh, ask yourself or better still, ask a
priest if it is any more than you have deserved. It is never wo late
to repent, this side of Heaven. Renounce Signor Valeriano and return
to my son. Otherwise, your children are as dead to you as if you had
buried them with your own hands.

I
remain, to my lasting shame and regret, your father-in-law,

Lodovico
Malvezzi

Lodovico
smiled with satisfaction. It would do. He folded the letter,
addressed it, and went to the window, where he had left a stick of
wax to warm in the sun. A candle-flame would have melted the wax far
more quickly, but Lodovico would have thought it a shocking
extravagance to keep a candle burning in broad daylight, just to seal
a letter. He placed a dollop of wax on the letter and ground his
seal into it. The seal left a bold, clear imprint of his family
device: a sword pointing upward, with a serpent coiled around the
blade.

He
was about to ring for a servant to take the letter. Then a frown
gathered on his brow, and he took a turn about the room. His study
was on the topmost floor of the castle's largest tower. One window
faced west, over the castle courtyard with its high, spiked curtain
wall, toward an expanse of tree-covered hills dotted with hardy stone
cottages. In the distance rose a range of purple Alps, mantled in
mist and crowned with snow. The window opposite looked out on the
silver-blue ribbon of the Lake of Como, and the jagged promontories,
plunging ravines, and wooded slopes that lined its shores. Lodovico
was master of all he surveyed: what he did not own outright, he
dominated by virtue of his rank, wealth, and high standing with
Milan's Austrian overlords.

And
yet his daughter-in-law a mere woman, hardly more than a girl! had
defied him for nearly two years, cleaving steadfastly to her
monstrous lover and resisting all his threats. Her infidelity was
the least of her crimes: in Milan, many a married lady of rank had
her cavalier, and society viewed them both with an indulgent eye, if
the lover was well born, and the affair was conducted discreetly.
But Francesca had attached herself to a singer one who could not even
be

dignified
with the title of a man. What was worse, she had left her husband to
live openly with him. It was not to be borne.

Lodovico
strode back to his desk, took a new sheet of paper, and dashed off:

Castello
Malvezzi Tuesday morning My dear Rinaldo,

I
have answered your wife's letter in the manner it deserved. If I
could rely on you to act with firmness and resolution, my
intervention would not be needed. But I know too well that you are
the plaything of any strong will brought to bear on you. That being
so, you did right to pass her letter on to me.

What
I wish to know now is, are you a man? Do you mean to behave, for
once in your life, like the future head of this house? Francesca may
well approach you again, thinking no doubt rightly that you are weak
enough to yield to her entreaties and allow her a glimpse of Niccolo
and Bianca. If you do, you will find yourself without an income, or
even a roof over your head. I swear to you that I will throw you
into the street, sooner than let you cross me in this.

I
might have hoped, since Heaven saw fit to give me only one child,
that he would be a man of character and courage. But God's will be
done. You have already failed once to defend your honour. Fail now,
and I wash my hands of you for good and all.

Believe
me, yours most sincerely,

Lodovico
Malvezzi

Lodovico
folded and sealed the letter, then tugged on the bell-pull.
Footsteps, increasingly laboured, approached up the spiral stairway.
At last Lodovico's servant Ernesto appeared, panting from the climb
up the tower. Lodovico prided himself on being able to take those
stairs at a gallop, although he and Ernesto were of an age. But
Ernesto was grey and grave and looked his full fifty-six years, while
Lodovico was still a fine figure of a man, his hair more black than
white, his hazel eyes brilliant, his tall form straight and
commanding. What was more, his strength and energy were unimpaired
he flattered himself that plenty of women could attest to that.