Veritas (Atto Melani) (80 page)

No, we would not wait passively. Camilla de’ Rossi’s furious and sublime music fired my heart and spirit, exciting me to bold revenge. I looked carefully this time
at the Chormaisterin’s Italian musicians and wished I could put them all through the mill, and squeeze from them, like a fistful of olives, the dishonourable truth of their shady pursuits. I
stared at the theorbist Francesco Conti and his scrawny face: weren’t they the features of one ready to sell his honour for a handful of coins? I passed onto his round-cheeked wife, the
soprano Maria Landina, known to everyone as Landina, and I said to myself: wasn’t that florid face the image of a woman who has grown fat on underhand dealings? And the tenor Carlo Costa,
with his pointed beard – didn’t everything about him suggest a shameless, double-dealing mind, wholly bent on evil? And Gaetano Orsini, with his incessant prattle, wasn’t he the
epitome of the hypocritical huckster? Then I observed a second violinist with the crafty little eyes of one who knew it all, a group of violone players with hooked noses that betrayed greed, and
flutists with the affected manners of congenital liars. There came back to me, like an ill-digested meal regurgitated, Atto’s tales of musician-spies like Dowland and Corbetta, and the
conspiratorial and musical activities of Atto Melani himself, and I said to myself: you fool, do you really think you can shake hands with a musician and not find your palm greasy with a
spy’s guilty sweat? And I fell back on bitter reflections: on the cruel fate for Euterpe and Erato, sweet Muses of sounds, ever to find sly Mercury, lord of the wicked arts, at their heels.
And I felt ashamed of having taken pride in the friendship of such people, who must have been laughing up their sleeves at my naivety.

But what weighed most heavily on me was the thought of the Chormaisterin. Was she, too, involved in this sordid practice of spying? A number of things about Camilla were still obscure to me.
How, for example, had she guessed that Cloridia knew Turkish so well? Not even I knew that, and I was her husband! And yet the Chormaisterin had proposed her for the job in Prince Eugene’s
palace while the Agha was staying there, already quite certain of my consort’s linguistic skills. And then there was her curiosity about Cloridia’s past, her Turkish mother, and the
fact that that she cooked with spelt, just as my wife did, and, finally, her acquaintance with Atto Melani. She had been introduced to him in Paris, she said, along with her husband Franz de’
Rossi, nephew – so she said! – of Seigneur Luigi, Atto’s old master. But what proof did I have of all this? If one questioned her on her past, Camilla would refuse to talk of her
life before her marriage. She said she was Roman – Trasteverine, to boot – but she did not have the faintest trace of a Roman accent.

And then this Anton de’ Rossi, Cardinal Collonitz’s ex-chamberlain, must clearly have been a relative of Franz! Simonis, on his return from the Coppersmiths’ Slope, had told me
that he had not found the owner at home and had been unable to elicit much about Gaetano Orsini, except that their friendship was based on the fact that the young castrato, years ago, had taken
lessons from Anton de’ Rossi’s deceased cousin, a court composer who had died prematurely, named Franz . . . Why had Camilla wanted to deny this? Sitting next to Cloridia, I took the
opportunity to tell her about it. She gazed at me open-mouthed: shades of suspicion fell on the person she now considered a dear friend. She furrowed her brows. I could guess what she was thinking.
Some time ago the Chormaisterin had also denied being a relative of the Camilla de’ Rossi whom Cloridia had known briefly in Trastevere: perhaps she had been lying then as well?

That evening
Sant’ Alessio
was followed by a short rehearsal of another composition, also to be performed in the next few days.

It was now a sweet boy’s voice that sang, and his innocence, I thought, was in sharp contrast with the murky hearts of the musicians all around. The composition was by Francesco Conti, the
theorbist, and the Latin words sung by the boy seemed to have been written specifically to stir my desire for justice. First a heartfelt prayer to the Saviour:

“For your love, O sweet Jesus, my soul languishes, burns and sighs, and consumes itself with love“; oh yes, I said to myself sardonically, just the right words for
this motley crew of crooked spies. Much more appropriate was the next stanza, which gave way to an
allegro
moderato
:

“O wounds, celestial life, symbols of victory of the loving sovereign, open your heart to me!”

With all this tangled skein of suspicions I would have been very happy to open the heart of the beautiful and candid Chormaisterin. Oh yes, but I was even more eager to delve inside that of
Gaetano Orsini – and very soon I would get the chance to do so, and to get all that I wanted from it.

“Four have already died. If Ugonio has ended up the same way you’ll be the first to follow him.”

“Four people dead? Ugonio? What are you talking about?”

At the end of the rehearsal Simonis, Penicek and Opalinski took Gaetano Orsini by surprise as he walked home.

I had told my assistant about Ugonio’s disappearance and the need to put pressure on Orsini. Simonis had rushed round to Opalinski’s house and had persuaded him to make peace with
Penicek. “We must remain united – if we start to accuse one another it’ll be the end,” he said. The Pole’s anger, to tell the truth, had simmered down. He had begun to
feel that he had accused the Pennal too precipitately, carried away by his despair at Koloman Szupán’s death, which might have been accidental.

And so the three students moved in threateningly on Orsini. The young castrato was terrified, finding himself menaced by the muscles of the imposing Polish student, by the lanky Simonis and the
shuffling, bespectacled Penicek, whose shifty, lopsided figure shuffling along in the dark had something decidedly fiendish about it.

I had simply pointed out the victim to them and then hidden round the corner. In the silence of the evening I could hear their questions and answers distinctly:

“It doesn’t matter if you won’t give us the other people’s names – we already know them. It’s too late for Koloman but if you don’t spill where the
corpisantaro
is, you’ll be spilling something else: your life’s blood!” the Greek threatened him.

“The
corpisantaro
? I assure you there’s been a mistake! You’ve got the wrong person, I have no idea what you’re asking me, I swear,” whimpered Orsini.

At a sign from Simonis, Opalinski punched him in the belly. Orsini bent double. The Pole gave him another backhander on his right cheek, while Penicek and my assistant gripped him from behind.
The Pennal clutched his hair, pulling his head back, while Simonis twisted his arms behind his back. The poor singer, definitely not accustomed to such low-life techniques, moaned as Penicek
covered his mouth.

“Take . . . take all the money I have on me . . . It’s not much, but not so little either! Please don’t kill me.”

“So we haven’t made ourselves clear,” persisted Simonis. “We want to know about Ugonio, the
corpisantaro
. Was he supposed to come and see you? Or did you have an
appointment somewhere? And what can you tell me about the two hanged men?”

“What are you talking about? I hate forests. I hardly ever leave the walls. I tell you,” he said in a bewildered, imploring voice, “I don’t even know who
–”

Opalinski gave him two more punches in the stomach.

“We’re fed up with your meaningless nonsense, do you understand?” whispered the Greek, while Jan went on: “Ugonio: the one dressed in a stinking greatcoat. The relic
thief. Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten . . .”

Janitzki, just to be certain, smacked him robustly three or four times. Orsini stopped yelling. This earned him a hail of blows on the head and a piece of his own jacket thrust down his throat.
The fight was ridiculously unequal.

“I’ve got a little money on me, take it all,” Orsini offered again.

“Let’s try again,” repeated Simonis, paying no attention to the offer. “Ugonio, the one who talks a little weirdly . . . Make an effort.”

“I’ll take you to my house, if you like, I’ve got more money there . . .” answered the castrato, merely earning himself a series of six or seven raps on his head and
face.

“At least ask him if he knows where he lives,” suggested Opalinski.

“You’re right. Did you hear my friend?”

Silence. Orsini was weeping. To make absolutely certain, Jan delivered a few more thumps, which had the opposite effect to the one desired: the castrato, clearly out of control, began to pray in
a low voice. The reaction seemed too spontaneous not to be true.

“For this time we’ll let you go. But if we find out you’ve been lying, and especially if you tell anyone about this conversation, well, you’ll be in for a nasty
surprise.”

Orsini had now dropped to the ground. I felt a pang for the poor musician, whom I had seen yield to the fairly restrained violence of the three students like a piece of butter to a red-hot
knife. Then I thought of the dead lads, of Ugonio, and my pity for Orsini diminished.

The three now came running in my direction. They ran on past me, giving me a quick nod as they went by. I followed them almost at once, running as lightly as possible on the pavement so as not
to let Orsini know that a fourth man (and one well-known to him!) had observed the solemn thrashing.

“There are two possibilities: either he’s a sly one, and tough to boot, or you’ve made a mistake,” remarked Jan Janitzki Opalinski before setting off.

We also took our leave of Penicek. Then my assistant and I made our way back to Porta Coeli.

“Let’s wait until tomorrow,” I said before separating for the night. “If Ugonio hasn’t got in touch by the afternoon, we’ll go to the Cathedral of St Stephen.
We’ll look for the deacon he was going to talk to about the Archangel Michael’s message. Ugonio told us he’s a collector of relics – maybe that will help us trace him. But .
. . what is it? Ah, yes, here you are: your book.”

At that moment I had found Doctor Abelius’s little handbook in my pocket. The Greek took it without saying a word. Then we took leave of one another.

Day the Seventh
W
EDNESDAY
, 15
^TH
A
PRIL
1711

“Tomorrow night, do you understand? They’re going to do it tomorrow night,” said Cloridia, her voice eager and anxious.

“And so? What’s the problem?”

Cloridia had once again been urgently summoned during the early hours of the day to the palace of the Prince of Savoy. The Agha would return that morning for a new audience, but not at midday as
usual, but before dawn.

But just a short while later my dear wife returned from the palace. She had stolen a few minutes from her job to tell me the red-hot news she had heard.

As we already knew, the Most Serene Prince had been supposed to leave for the front the previous day, Tuesday. As His Caesarean Majesty’s condition still seemed to be improving, the
condottiero
had finally resolved to leave the day after tomorrow, Thursday 16th April. He had written a letter to the Emperor officially announcing his intention to leave Vienna. This last
piece of news could be traced back to one of Eugene’s scribes, and so seemed more than certain. But this was not what was agitating Cloridia.

Before leaving, Eugene was to meet the Turkish Agha again. To talk about what (and at that hour, when the nobles were snoring), was a mystery, since they had seen each other just two days
earlier. But nor was that the main reason for Cloridia’s anxiety.

She had had a good deal to do that morning. First, to accompany two soldiers in the Agha’s retinue to the kitchens to negotiate the unofficial purchase of liquors. Then to provide
explanations for another pair of Turkish soldiers, who, beguiled by the sight of some couples behaving fairly freely during an
Andacht
, were asking for information about the habits of the
local females (Cloridia had warned them against any harassment, which might provoke a diplomatic incident). Then she had had to obtain pen and paper for another Ottoman, a young man of a sad and
contemplative temperament, who wanted to take home a sketch of Eugene’s palace. After that she had had to resolve a row over prices between the two soldiers she had earlier taken to the
kitchen to buy alcoholic beverages and one of the Most Serene Prince’s cooks. Finally, Cloridia had been requested by the palace staff to remind some of the gentle guests (if the grim
soldiery of the Orient could be so termed) at His Highness’s residence that it was forbidden to make souvenirs of such items as ornaments, curtains, candelabra, the precious damask upholstery
of the armchairs or the stucco from the walls. Cloridia had seen to all this while the Agha made his arrival at the palace and engaged in conversation with Eugene, this time in private audience,
accompanied only by the official interpreters and the closest, most trusted counsellors.