Read The Devil in Music Online
Authors: Kate Ross
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.