The Devil in Music (12 page)

When
he came into the parlour he and Kestrel shared, he saw that the door
to Kestrel's bedroom was open. Dipper was inside, reverently laying
Kestrel's three dozen newly laundered neck cloths one by one in their
rectangular box. MacGregor came forward and stood in the doorway.
"Where's your master?"

"He
went out to buy a dictionary, sir."

"A
dictionary? What sort of dictionary?"

"A
Milanese dictionary, sir."

"Why
in blue blazes does he need a Milanese dictionary? He speaks
Italian."

"There
ain't no such thing as h'ltalian, really, sir," Dipper explained
helpfully. "There's Tuscan and Neapolitan and Venetian, and I
dunno what else. In Milan, they patter Milanese. So Mr. Kestrel
wanted to brush it up."

MacGregor
smiled in spite of himself, to hear a youthful Cockney speak so
knowingly about Italian dialects. "Before you knew Kestrel, did
you ever think you'd be a seasoned traveller in Italy?"

"Before
I knew Mr. Kestrel, sir, the only place I ever expected to travel
was Australia."

MacGregor
realized he must mean the penal colony at Botany Bay. And very
likely he was right. Even expert pickpockets could not evade the law
forever. Something dawned on MacGregor that he ought to have
perceived long since. "It's for Kestrel's sake that you don't
want to go to Milan, isn't it?"

Dipper
did not answer.

"Kestrel
doesn't want me to know about this, does he? That's why he tried to
fob me off, when I asked him this morning what you had against this
Italian business of his. Finally he told me to ask you what it was
about probably because he knew I would anyway. Well, what is it? Out
with it, man."

"I
think he ought to keep clear of this h'ltalian murder, sir. But he's
got a bee in his bonnet about it."

"Well,
why shouldn't he try his hand at solving it? He's solved murders
before."

"Not
in h'ltaly, sir. Things is different there. The sbirri that's the
police, sir, but you don't call 'em that to their faces, 'coz it
ain't a polite word they can bone any cove and clap him in quod."

"You
know I can't understand you when you talk that gibberish."

"I
mean, sir, they can take any man up on suspicion and put him in
prison. And if they think he's a Carbonaro that's a radical, sir, as
plots against the h'Austrians then he won't never get out, 'coz even
if the sbirri can't prove he's a Carbonaro, he most likely can't
prove that he ain't. So they packs him off to some prison in
h'Austria, loaded up with body-slangs fetters, that is." Dipper
came closer, his eyes getting very round. "In Rome, they cuts
off coves' heads! I seen it, last time we was there. It ain't
civilised!"

"Well,
you know, the guillotine is really more humane than our hangings. It
kills almost instantly, whereas a poor devil struggling on a rope can
take ten minutes or more to die."

"Oh,
yes, I know that, sir. Me pa was a quarter-hour about it, when they
done him. But I still say it ain't civilised."

MacGregor
was taken aback, and could not at first pick up the thread of their
conversation. "But Kestrel isn't going to be mistaken for one
of these Carbonaros. He's British, for God's sake! Besides, he
lived in Italy for years. He must know how to keep out of trouble
with the police."

"He
never had reason to go near 'em before, sir. Most foreigners don't.
They goes to h'ltaly to look at paintings and statues. They don't
keep company with the sbirri nor with murderers."

MacGregor
felt a chill down his back. He said, with as much conviction as he
could muster. "Kestrel's handled murder investigations before.
He knows what he's about."

"He
knows too much, sir. Sees through a millstone, Mr. Kestrel does.
And in h'ltaly, them as lives longest is them as sees nothing at
all."

The
door from the hallway into the adjacent parlour opened and closed.
Dipper at once discovered an infinitesimal crease in one of the neck
cloths and bent over it with a small, slender iron he had left
warming on the hob. MacGregor clasped his hands behind him and
rocked back and forth self-consciously on his heels.

Kestrel
came in. "I can see my ears ought to have been burning."
He added, looking critically from one to the other, "In fact,
it's a wonder my hat wasn't set on fire."

Dipper
removed Kestrel's wet coat and helped him into his dressing gown Then
Kestrel and MacGregor went into the parlour. Kestrel smiled wryly
and lifted his brows, obviously expecting to be read a lecture.
MacGregor knew he would listen pleasantly, parry MacGregor's
arguments with charm and wit, and then do exactly as he pleased. For
all his courtesy and tact, Kestrel could be as stubborn as well, as
MacGregor himself.

"I
suppose you've considered," MacGregor said at last, "that
any trouble you get into in Milan is bound to involve him, too?"
He jerked his head toward the room where Dipper was still packing.

"Yes."
Kestrel looked grave at that. "But what can I do? I can't
tell him he needn't come with me if he'd rather not. The least one
can do in return for loyalty like his is not insult it."

MacGregor
sighed, acknowledging the truth of this. "Will you do one thing
for me?"

"If
I can," said Kestrel, a touch guardedly.

"Lay
hand on heart, and ask yourself if this Italian venture of yours is
worth the risk. Maybe these fears of Dipper's are all fustian I
don't know. But I do know that, if my son had lived, he'd have been
about your age. And I'd like to think, when we go our separate ways
tomorrow, that I'll see you again."

For
once Kestrel seemed at a loss for words. MacGregor wanted to press
his advantage: Come home with me or at least go somewhere, anywhere,
other than Milan. But if Kestrel acceded, he would always regret it.
He had called this the investigation of a lifetime wouldn't he always
wonder what it would have been like? What right had MacGregor to
deprive him of his adventure? One of them ought not to turn back.
So MacGregor said nothing. And the next day Kestrel and Dipper set
out for Milan.

The
Simplon Highway, running from Paris to Milan by way of Geneva and the
Alps, was perhaps the greatest gift Napoleon had bequeathed to Italy.
For some fifteen years, the northern Italian states had been united
under his rule, and Milan had been the Italian Paris the dashing and
elegant capital of Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy. That kingdom had
fallen a dozen years ago, and the Austrians, who had held Milan
before the French came, made haste to reclaim it. Nowadays, to speak
well of the Kingdom of Italy was treasonous in Milan; to fly its red,
white, and green tricolour was to invite arrest. Napoleon, though
dead, was still a threat to Italy's overlords. To be sure, he had
been a conqueror, who had kindled dreams of liberty in the Italians
only to beguile them into servitude to another master. But the fact
remained that, for the first time since ancient Rome, much of Italy
had been united. The King of Italy might have been a French despot,
but the Kingdom of Italy was now a living ideal for many Italians.

And
the Simplon Highway remained. Skirting Lake Geneva, a great flat
sheet of water dotted with dipping gulls, it passed through a plain
rich in orchards, vineyards, and flocks of black-headed sheep. The
faraway mountains on either side of the road were featureless just
mammoth shapes of a colour neither grey nor purple nor blue. But on
the third day of Julian's journey, the sky cleared, and the mountains
began to close in. The road twisted and ascended; the horses
laboured harder and rested more frequently. Julian laid aside his
Milanese dictionary to watch the Alps rise up around him: their lower
slopes covered with feathery trees tinged orange by the autumn
chills, their higher reaches bare and bleak and flecked with snow.
Then the sky narrowed to a ribbon of blue, as the road was caught
between sheer rock faces scored with tracks of ancient streams.
Sometimes the sky vanished altogether, as the road was swallowed up
in a mountain cavern, while overhead there came a deafening roar of
snow crashing down the cliff side At last they reached the summit of
the Simplon Pass, where Julian looked along a vast valley threaded by
a foaming stream, to a row of lofty peaks as white and pure as a
glimpse of Heaven.

Then
came the descent, zigzagging among stark cliffs and dizzying
waterfalls. The postillion had to dismount frequently to slip a skid
pan under the rear wheels, in order to keep the carriage from
overtaking the horses. At Iselle they crossed the frontier into
Piedmont, the north westernmost Italian state. There they spent the
night at an inn that clung to the side of a precipice and was
perpetually shrouded in fogs from the chasm below. Next day, the
ground grew flatter, the landscape greener, and Julian felt a thrill
of anticipation, as the balmier air caressed his face with the
promise of Italy.

Dipper,
who never brooded long over ills he could not remedy, soon regained
his usual cheerfulness and made friends with postillions, ostlers,
and waiters all along the way. There were gaps in his Italian, but
what he could not put into words, he conveyed with gestures as fluid
and expressive as the Italians' own.

The
road hugged the western shore of Lake Maggiore, winding between
wooded hills and dazzling deep-blue water. At the southern tip of
the lake, the Lombard frontier loomed up before them, marked by flags
bearing black imperial eagles, and by the shimmer of sunlight on
Austrian bayonets. Customs officials demanded Julian's and Dipper's
passports, and were duly bribed to return them after a brief
examination. Thereafter, all along the road to Milan, shabby police
clerks kept popping out of wooden boxes, inspecting passports and
extorting tips. Of course, the customs officials were mainly an
annoyance to legitimate travellers: smugglers and Carbonari knew how
to deceive or avoid them.

The
land was flat and fertile now, crisscrossed by rows of mulberry
trees, their branches gaily festooned with vines. Julian made out a
speck of brilliant gold in the mists on the horizon: the statue of
the Madonnina, protectress of Milan, atop the highest spire of the
cathedral. Then the cathedral roof came into view: a triangular hulk
that slowly, wondrously crystallized into a myriad of slender white
spires. The carriage entered Milan by the Simplon Gate, where a half
finished arch of triumph stood amid rough sheds and moss-grown blocks
of marble. The arch had been begun by Napoleon, and the Austrians
could not bring themselves either to complete it or to tear it down.

It
gave Julian a peculiar sensation, seeing Milan again. He had not
been here in so long not since his first journey to Italy. Yet it
all seemed startlingly familiar: the spacious thoroughfares flanked
by rabbit warrens of back alleys, the proud palaces cheek by jowl
with wretched shacks, the balconies with their delicate iron railings
and blowing linen, the gaudy array of blue, green, and yellow awnings
on shops and cafes. But it was chiefly the people who gave the
streets their charm and animation. Well-to-do young men showed off
their prowess on English horses; brightly clad peasants hawked
everything from chestnuts to cane chairs; Jesuits strutted like
ravens in their elegant, austere black cassocks; Austrian soldiers
stood about smoking cigars and conversing in German or Hungarian.
But the women drew Julian's notice most. They were remarkably
handsome, their eyes large, dark, and expressive, their movements
impetuous yet graceful.

Julian
put up at an inn called the Bella Venezia in Piazza San Fedele,
convenient to the cathedral, the Scala opera house, and the Santa
Margherita, Milan's principal police office and prison. Not that he
intended to approach the police directly about the Malvezzi murder.
They were not likely to welcome the assistance of a young English
dandy, however experienced he might be in solving crimes. The only
Englishman they would be eager to see was Orfeo, who had every reason
to put a continent between himself and them.

No:
he would rather offer his services to the Malvezzi family. But there
were several things he wanted to find out first. What efforts were
being made to find Lucia Landi? And Tonio Farese, Maestro Donati's
servant what had become of him? Finally, what role were Lodovico's
relatives playing in the investigation? The newspapers said little
about them, which suggested they had retired from public view during
this crisis. But if they were showing themselves anywhere, it was
bound to be at the opera.

La
Scala was the nightly rendezvous of much of the city of Milan. The
aristocracy in particular rarely entertained at home, partly because
their pa lazzi were seldom as sumptuous inside as out, and partly
because the police assumed that any group of educated Italians who
gathered in private, especially at night, must be hatching a
conspiracy. Instead, each of the two hundred private boxes at La
Scala served as a tiny drawing room, where for four or five hours a
night, six nights a week, the box holder and his guests played cards,
exchanged gossip, sometimes even took meals. In the dark depths of
the boxes, lovers made assignations, and Carbonari were said to plot.
No one paid much attention to the music after all, the audience sat
through the same opera twenty or thirty nights in a row. The loud
talk and clinking of knives and forks subsided only during favourite
arias and ensembles, which were listened to with rapt attention and a
highly critical ear.