The Black Opera (48 page)

Conrad couldn't help a smile.

“I'm not a complete fool. If you won't look after your good name—”
For the next two weeks
. “—I will. Tullio will make us tea, and… Angelotti's wife Maria can act as chaperone, while she's sewing costumes.”

Leonora looked wistful. “I've never understood why a woman can't have friends who are men. But yes, it will silence rumour.”

Conrad studied her for a long moment. “You can have friends who are men. Just… not me. If we have no chaperone, I'm going to find this place as familiar as our lodgings in the Accademia. And that means I'll kiss you, and touch you, and… Forgive me: I don't want to find out whether you will stop me—or you won't.”

Leonora Capiraso said nothing. She gave a small nod.

He turned away to call Tullio.

The large man brought wine, and bread, and olives. He put the cups down with a speaking look at Conrad. If vocalised, Conrad thought, it would have mentioned something along the lines of
playing with fucking fire when you're sitting on top of an ammunition wagon!

He's not wrong
, Conrad thought, as he helped Angelotti's seamstress wife set up her sewing in a corner of the stone cell.
But it's Nora.

Paolo joined them, during a break in orchestral rehearsal, helping herself to Conrad's olives and reading the new verses over his shoulder. She greeted Leonora with a charming smile (that Conrad thought it would be entirely too confusing to be jealous of).

“I appreciate you taking the chorus through their roles,” Paolo said. “We still can't get understudies for threats nor money, so groom any one of them you find talented. Just in case. Contessa, we need all the help we can get! And I'm sure my cousin will agree that
he
needs it…”

Conrad gave her a stern look.

He was met by the stubborn set of her lip that meant any protest was useless.

Nora, with demure mischief, said, “Signore Pironti is correct, obviously.”

“‘Paolo,'” the disguised girl said cheerfully.

“Please call me Leonora, then.”

Conrad made a mental note to ask—when the next twelve—eleven?—days were over—why a sister and a sweetheart will invariably combine their forces to persecute the relevant male?

Roberto Capiraso took the orchestra through the revised Act III, which echoed through the tunnels. Conrad glanced up from his scribbling as Leonora entered his stone cell again with two of the women who sang mezzo in the chorus, currently on their break, and the carpenter's wife—apparently today's chaperone. Since Tullio appeared to be elsewhere, Conrad went over to the cupboard for wine, and served all. Leonora left the other women chatting, and took the other chair beside Conrad's desk.

“Well?” Conrad indicated the sheets of paper she had brought, rolled up inside her fur hand-warmer, “suggestions?”

“Oh, certainly… I'd make the same suggestions if it were to Roberto,” Leonora murmured aloud, musing over a sheet of paper over-written with so many crossing lines of script as to be indecipherable. “I did try, when he first started this opera. He told me it ‘wasn't women's business.'”

Conrad snorted. Leonora's head came up, eyes fixing him with a glare that failed to be effectively icy.

“Corrado, if you tell me that you
agree
…”

Conrad glanced across the tunnel at a stone cistern, now dry, that formed a smaller rehearsal room. Paolo sat playing at the cribbage board with a scene-painter's
wife, theoretically overseeing Sandrine and Estella in their duet. “…I wouldn't dare. We have some remarkable women here. And I know you. You're remarkable, Nora.”

She tossed her head, ash-brown hair flying, in imitation of a fashionable young lady in a pout. “I know that!”

“Well, then.” Conrad pushed the pen-stand across the green-topped desk. “Feel free to be extraordinary and help me out!”

“I did have an idea, in fact, Corradino. Our missing contralto, Donna Lorenzani—”

“—Who's ship is due in from Cape Town any day now; yes, yes—” Conrad sighed. “Believe me, I do know!”

Leonora's smile was wide and warm.

“I think we can do better than a tiny role as a Priestess, Corrado. Suppose we give our captured Amazon slave-girl Hippolyta a
mother!”

Conrad gazed at her features in the lamp's white glow.
“Cazzo!
A mother?”

“Call her—‘Thalestris.'” Nora beamed. “Good Classical name. Thalestris…
Queen
of the Amazons! She can be searching for her
lost daughter
. What do you think? The audience can see her first disguised as a traveller in the Aztec lands—we can put that aria in anywhere that the other singers need a break—”

Conrad drained his glass and seized scrap paper. His dip-pen splattered ink across the wood of the table top, but he ignored it, too busy writing to clean up.

“Thalestris…” He tried the name on his tongue. “A warrior-mother… Who, when she finds her daughter, will make Hippolyta
choose
between love and her duty to the Amazon nation! Ideal!…
‘Brigida Lorenzani, contralto, as Thalestris, disguised Queen of the Amazons,'”
Conrad read aloud as he wrote. He contemplated his own spiky handwriting of the cast list.

Nora pushed her glass forward as the returned Tullio came over to re-fill all of them. “Queen Thalestris… which makes Hippolyta an Amazon warrior Princess! Aren't you tempted to call this opera
Le Due Principesse
?”

Conrad held his thumb and forefinger a quarter-inch apart. “Thalestris is a
small
part! Sandrine's already feeling besieged by Amazons. If I get too involved with Hippolyta's family, we're going to lose track of our main love triangles.”

Paolo-Isaura waved from the corridor, not willing to interrupt their train of thought. She would be taking over the orchestral rehearsal.
And that means il Conte will be at leisure soon
.

Leonora sat back in the chair, interrupting his thoughts. She held up her hand in acquiescence. “Even so, one more thing. Hippolyta's child should be a boy.”

Conrad frowned. “It makes a difference?”

“I do read in my husband's library,” Nora said mildly. “Traditionally, the
Amazons only raised their daughters. If they had sons, they left them behind with whoever fathered them. Imagine how that would make Hippolyta's choice between love of Cortez and love of country
even harder
… I don't think Estella will complain if she's given that to sing!”

Conrad shook his head, amused. “You have a streak of cruelty I never suspected.”

Leonora reached to turn the lamp down, since the wick grew sooty and the flame high. Her eyes had a gleam from more than the light. “Now you think you're flattering me. Either that, or your memory of Venezia is very poor.”

“I do remember you were able to be cruel to fictional characters.”

Conrad could only look at her fondly. Her frank friendship seemed somehow more of a barrier between them than her absence, he realised.

He tore himself away from contemplating her features, and paged through his notes. “This means revising the Act Four opening yet again.”

Nora pushed back her chair and stood, preparing to leave. Her smile was mocking, but not cruel. “Of course it does. This is opera. It
always
does.”

In the mine-shafts and caverns, it was easy to lose track of the hours passing above, and whether they were dark or daylight. Conrad lifted work-blurred vision from the paper. He found his pocket watch very little help in remembering whether the hands indicated twelve midday or twelve midnight.

He suspected the latter.

“There should be a trio for the ‘white voices' in Act Three.” Roberto Capiraso yawned. And looked astonished that he had done anything so
gauche
in company.

Conrad managed not to laugh at him. “Velluti, Sandrine, and Estella? Castrato, mezzo, and soprano… Yes.”

“I wondered about three cavatinas. However, I like the idea of changing between all the possible duets in turn, and then the trio, so that all the scenes run on from each other, like Signore Rossini's
gran terzetto…
” Roberto yawned again.

“Take one of the spare beds and sleep.” Conrad pushed his chair back and stood. “I'm not sure
which
day it is—Thursday?—but you've been awake for a day and a night. I have to write lines for your new Act Four romanza. Paolo can take care of the rehearsals.”

It was possible to gauge how tired the Count was by the fact that he didn't object, only muttering something as Tullio Rossi led him to one of the other stone cubicles.

Conrad seated himself back at his table, to play with the rhyming scheme. His next sensation was of pain in his shoulder and elbow, and Tullio's voice in his ear—encouraging him to wake, he realised, as the man guided him to sit upright.

Muscles spiked and jolted with pain. His eyes opened. Ink had starred the page where he fell asleep on it. A glance at his watch told him eight or nine hours had passed.

“Is it morning?” He winced as he stretched his arms.

“Think so.” Tullio visibly worked it out. “Thursday. I think. Maybe Wednesday. Friday? Sorry to wake you. We have trouble in the hall.”

Conrad shook the stiffness out of his bones, and followed the big man along the duck-boards towards the central large mine.

There was certainly nothing wrong with the acoustics of the underground mine used as the main rehearsal hall. Both Sandrine Furino and Estella Belucci were busy proving that as Conrad walked down the long passage towards them. Unfortunately, neither of them were singing.

“—Liar!”

“Abomination!”

“Whore!”

“Thief!”

Conrad, attention on the two women facing off against each other on Angelotti's makeshift stage, shot Tullio a brief querying look.

Tullio murmured, “Started when Donna Estella insisted her part isn't a
comprimario
role, and Sandrine disagreed…”

“Oh dear.”

On-stage, the two of them matched poses as if it had been scripted. The small, fair-haired Estella Belucci and the tall Sandrine Furino nonetheless glared eyeball to eyeball—fists clenched, yelling just not
quite
hard enough to strain their voices.

“And how did you get
out
of the chorus, hm?” Sandrine hissed. “On your knees with your mouth full of cock?”

“Better than seeing all of Italy
on my back
, like you do!”

“At least they come to hear me sing, not look at my tits!”

“Nobody can
see
your tits, you dried up old witch!”

“Why isn't Paolo putting a stop to this?” Conrad muttered.

Tullio jerked his chin. Looking in the desired direction, Conrad saw his sister leaning dopily up against Luigi Esposito's chest, a hand-print plain red on her face. From the diminutive size of the print, it was Estella's.

As he turned back, Conrad caught Tullio scowling.

“Far too friendly with the Captain,” Tullio muttered.