1 - Interrupted Aria (23 page)

“Take care, Orlando, you’re talking about my mother,” Caterina said, still simmering with anger.

The composer whirled on the soprano. “Not exactly a model of maternal devotion was she? Too busy being Viviani’s whore I suppose. I’ll never understand why she refused my offer of marriage to stay in this dying city and be used by that vain, self-important aristocrat.”

He saw me shake my head, and his voice rose in intensity. “Yes, you preening capon, your precious Venice is dying. Have you been over to the shipyard lately? Half the men are idle and their tools are rusty. The trade is to the west now, to the New World. England’s star is rising and Venice’s will soon sink below the horizon. It’s the same with our profession. The center of opera is moving north, to London, and I’m going with it.”

Orlando tried to brush past me and climb the stairs, but several hands reached out to grab him. Crivelli spoke the words Caterina and I were both thinking. “Please, Orlando, spare us a few more minutes before your flight to greatness. We are all aching to hear about your secondary plan.”

Surrounded by disdainful colleagues, Orlando threw himself into the nearest chair and regarded us all sullenly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What plan?”

Crivelli continued in a smooth voice. “I can see it all before me as if it were a play being produced right here on this stage. Adelina wouldn’t even consider leaving Venice, and she flatly refused your offer of marriage. I would suppose her refusal came as something of a shock. You had thought you were irresistible to the fairer sex, even to charming, worldly wise beauties like Adelina. Licking your wounds, you decided that if you couldn’t have Adelina, you could at least have her opera. You’d already been paid for
Juno
, so you would lose nothing by killing the poor woman, purloining the score she had been laboring over, and presenting
Eurydice
as your own work.”

Orlando’s eyes flashed, but he kept his temper. “You value Adelina more highly than I did, old man. Her refusal meant nothing to me. For all her celebrity, Adelina was just another woman quick to sacrifice her virtue to obtain comfortable rewards. Venice is full of her kind. London will be too, I imagine.” He leaned forward with an elbow on one knee. “Unlike you capons, when I want a woman, I always manage to find one. Besides, I was nowhere near Adelina on the night she died. I was out here at the harpsichord the entire evening.”

“Your memory is faulty, Orlando,” I said. “You came backstage after the first act. You were so excited about
Juno’
s success that you were practically babbling. Or perhaps it was the brandy you were carrying around that had gone to your head.”

“What of it?” Orlando asked with a frosty smile. “That doesn’t mean I killed Adelina.”

“You could have run upstairs and offered her a nip of your brandy, after you had added a vial of poison, of course.”

“I believe I offered you some as well.”

“Your memory suddenly improves. Yes, you offered me a drink and I turned you down. If I hadn’t, would I be keeping company with Adelina and the worms right now?”

“Why don’t you ask Torani? If I poisoned the brandy, he would be dead ten times over.”

The director shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose that’s true. I confiscated the bottle from Orlando and never returned it. I kept the brandy in my office. I believe I finished it off yesterday.” His voice trailed off uncomfortably.

Orlando rose from the chair and once again reached for his accursed satchel. “There now, with the matter of the brandy settled, I’ll take this as my cue to depart.”

Rather sullenly, I backed up the stairs to let him pass, but Caterina wasn’t through with Orlando. “The poison didn’t have to be in the brandy bottle. You could have poured something in Adelina’s wine decanter, just as Felice is accused of doing,” she cried in her most strident voice.

Orlando was losing patience. His hulking shoulders seemed to widen as he challenged Caterina. “But I didn’t go upstairs,” he snapped.

The soprano stood her ground. “How do we know that? Are we supposed to take the word of a thief?”

Orlando’s deliverance came from an unlikely source. “Excuse me, please, but I might be able to make matters clear,” said a French-accented voice. While we had been confronting the composer, several groups of curious workmen and other theater staff had gathered on the stage. Madame Dumas, the costumer, detached herself from a group of seamstresses and crept toward us. She addressed Torani. “Perhaps it isn’t my place to speak?”

“No, Madame,” the director gently encouraged her. “If you know anything, we want to hear it.”

The woman drew herself up and straightened the scissors and other implements that hung from a belt at her waist. As if she were giving a schoolroom recitation, she began, “On the night of Signora Belluna’s sad death, I came to the wings right before the end of Act One. This I do every night of the current production so that I can take charge of Monsieur Crivelli’s royal robes. If I don’t collect them, they are thrown in a corner and the white fur becomes filthy. It is impossible to clean, believe me, I have tried. On that night Monsieur Crivelli needed to sit and rest. I waited for the robes as is my job. I saw Monsieur Orlando Martello come backstage. He seemed so cheerful, laughing and slapping everyone on the back. I watched him until he went back out to play the music for the ballet.”

“Did he go upstairs to the dressing rooms?”

“No, Monsieur Torani.”

“Could you have lost sight of him, even for a bit? There were a lot of ballet girls running around backstage.”

“No, Monsieur. The girls make their entrance from an archway at the back of the stage. They weren’t in my way at all. I had Monsieur Martello in view every moment he was in the wings.”

Orlando began to chuckle in coarse, quaking gasps. He practically skipped up the stairs and amazed Madame Dumas by giving her withered cheek a long, loud kiss. Then, whistling the aria that Adelina had written for me, he made a beeline for the stage door.

Chapter 24

Less than a quarter of an hour after Orlando infuriated us all by swaggering out of the theater like an unrepentant pirate, I was outside in the late-morning sunshine, hunting for a gondola that could get me home in a hurry. The theater moorings had been deserted, so I trotted over to the Riva del Ferro. According to Venetian regulations, certain points on the Grand Canal must keep at least two gondolas ready for public service at all hours; nevertheless no boats were available.

I left the quayside in frustration and pushed on toward the Rialto Bridge. Despite the cool weather, this noisy place was doing a brisk trade. Fruit stands displayed plump golden pears, tangerines, and nuts clad in papery sheaths. The pungent fragrance of decaying, slightly frostbitten tuberoses filled my nose as I passed through the flower stalls. Near the butcher’s, the crowd of shoppers vying for cheap cuts of meat blocked my way, and a second-hand clothier seized the opportunity to try to interest me in an old cloak with a balding fur collar. I ignored the fellow and edged toward an area of relative peace on the other side of the huge German warehouse that dominated the north side of the bridge. Searching for an alley that would lead back to the canal, I spied a familiar figure.

“Alessandro, wait,” I cried, neatly sidestepping a pyramid of rough work boots.

My brother turned and greeted me with a surprised frown. “Tito, you should be at home. Brother Mark arrived just before I left. Annetta is plying him with polenta and sausages.”

“I’m trying to get a gondola, without much luck.” I pulled my cloak tightly around my chest as a jovial group of maskers jostled me from behind. “They’re starting early today, trying to make the most of the last days of Carnival, I suppose. What are you doing here?”

“I had some business with the Germans, so I decided to catch two fish on one line. Last night I learned of a wine merchant who keeps a shop near here. He has always bought his stock off Viviani vessels that import Muscat from the Ionian Islands. He recently switched to buying from the Albrimani. He’s not the only one. Tradesmen are backing away from Viviani, but I don’t know why.”

“You think this wine merchant will talk to you?”

“Perhaps. I directed some trade his way one time. He may recall the favor; if not, there are other ways to loosen his tongue.” Alessandro lifted an eyebrow and patted the pocket where he kept his purse, then the one that housed his dagger.

“Your merchant may be the only way we’ll ever find out what information Adelina planned to use against Viviani. The red book has turned up. It’s not a diary of Viviani’s crimes, but an opera that Adelina had been composing in secret.” I gave Alessandro an abridged version of Orlando’s treachery as we walked down the narrow alley to the canal.

“That sets us back. And lets Orlando off the hook,” he mused. “Annetta will be disappointed that her prime culprit has been cleared.”

“Yes, it looks more and more like Domenico Viviani or someone in his service poisoned Adelina to keep her quiet. But which one of them did it and, more importantly, what proof can we take to Messer Grande?”

“We must hope Felice can shed some light on the events of that night. If you want to see him, you need to get home and don your Dominican disguise,” my brother said, as he waved down an empty gondola.

***

By the time the clocks of Venice were striking one, I was again near the Rialto Bridge, this time on the opposite side of the Grand Canal. As promised, Brother Mark had outfitted me as a monk of his order. Following his long strides, I strove to walk naturally in the heavy, white robes that seemed determined to twist themselves around my legs. As on the day before, I could not detect any furtive followers.

It had been ten days since I had seen my friend Felice. As each hour passed, my anxiety over his plight swelled in my chest like an expanding balloon, but right then, my fear that I would be recognized as a fraud overshadowed all other emotions.

We arrived at the squat building of weathered stone that served as the headquarters for the
sbirri
who patrolled Venice’s central area and also confined prisoners awaiting trial. Once a man had faced the Tribunal he would be moved to the prison behind the Doge’s palace. If merciful fortune was with him, he might succumb to the horrid conditions before meeting the executioner. The upper rooms of the prison were crammed beneath the building’s leaden roof. Called I Piombe, The Leads, these cells baked prisoners like an oven in the summer and froze them in winter. No less feared were the damp, chilling cells behind the foundation stones. Built under the water line, these cells held inmates chained in water up to their knees.

Brother Mark and I passed the first test easily enough. He presented himself to the constable at the reception desk while I kept my chin tucked into my chest and my face shadowed by the black hood. Our presence aroused little interest until we reached the corridor ruled by Felice’s jailer. This rotund fellow displayed a luxuriant, albeit greasy moustache and a belt full of iron keys with equal pride. He planted his bulk in front of Felice’s cell door and expressed curiosity over two monks instead of one.

Brother Mark focused his calm, intense gaze on the doubting jailer. “My young novice needs to hear the confession of this penitent. It is part of his training. Seldom do we have the opportunity to minister to such a wicked miscreant.”

“If you only knew, Brother, what sort of criminals come under my charge. This prisoner is a small fish, a simple poisoner. They do say poison is more of a woman’s weapon. Anyway, this one is very quiet and unassuming. Ah, some I’ve had,” he boasted with a deliberate wink, “they’d tell you of deeds that would make the Devil himself blush.”

The Dominican bowed his head as if to acknowledge the importance and vast experience of the scoundrel who stood between us and my poor Felice. I kept silent, barely breathing, with my eyes downcast in what I hoped was a model of piety.

Brother Mark made the sign of the cross over the jailer and whispered a few Latin words. Switching back to our Venetian dialect, he praised the man’s bravery and sense of duty and granted that the Republic would be overrun with cutthroats and thieves if it were not for the dedication of men like our worthy jailer.

“And now,” the monk finished, “if you would be so kind, we need to see this prisoner. We have many calls to make today.”

The crucial moment was upon us. The jailer fingered his lush moustache; he jiggled his keys thoughtfully. A drop of sweat formed at my armpit and rolled down my side to lose itself in the fabric gathered around my waist.

A young constable stuck his head out from a doorway at the end of the corridor. “Dinner’s here, Sergeant. Your soup is getting cold.”

Our jailer’s eyes lit up and his nostrils flared as if he could smell the soup’s aroma from where we stood. He grabbed a thick key off the belt that strained to contain his girth and opened the lock on the stout door made of oaken planks lined with iron. “Give a yell when you’re done,” he said as he quickly shoved us inside, closed the door, and shot the bolt home.

I looked around the dim, cramped cell. There were no furnishings except a narrow bed and no other trappings except a bucket provided to serve the needs of nature. Felice was on the bed. He sat with his legs curled under him and his back pressed into the corner formed by two grimy walls. His head was bowed, and he appeared to be sunk in deepest melancholy.

“I’ve brought you a surprise, my friend,” whispered Brother Mark.

Felice roused at the sound of his voice. He welcomed the monk with an expression of joyful longing, but in the space of a breath, despair once again covered his features. In two long steps, Brother Mark was on the narrow bed hugging Felice to his chest.

“You came back,” Felice said as he leaned back into the corner, eyes glittering with unshed tears. “I knew you would if they’d let you.”

“And I’m not alone.”

I pulled my hood back far enough so that my friend could get a good look at my face. The tears overflowed and coursed down his cheeks as he shakily stood to embrace me. Never cloaked with abundant flesh, Felice’s back and shoulders had become alarmingly bony. Looking closely at his face, I saw sunken cheeks and lines around his mouth that had never been there before. With a sudden jerk and the ghost of a whimper, he pointed to the small, square grating in the door.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “The guard has gone to eat his dinner. We should have a few undisturbed minutes. How are you faring?”

Felice sank back on the bed. “Oh, Tito, my life is over. It ended with Adelina’s on that horrible night.”

“Don’t say that. We’re going to get you out of this mess. Crivelli and I, Alessandro and Annetta, even Caterina, we’ve all been working for your freedom.”

“Caterina? She’s been helping you?”

I told Felice about Adelina’s abandoned daughter who had grown up at the Ospedale Mendicanti to become the singer we knew as Caterina Testi. I was launching into our theories about who might have killed Adelina and why when Brother Mark broke in, “Time is short, Tito. You’d best pose your questions before the jailer returns.”

“Of course.” I sighed. “What happened that night, Felice? Why were you up in Adelina’s dressing room?”

“Adelina, that poor woman. She didn’t deserve what happened.” Felice hung his head, untended dark locks straggling about his shoulders. When he looked up again, his eyes burned with an unidentifiable emotion. “I am sorry she’s dead, but, by God, I had come to hate her very soul.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Brother Mark laid a hand on my arm. “Let him go on,” the monk whispered.

“Now I realize it wasn’t Adelina that stood between us. It was my own longing for a love that could never be.” Felice gave me a thin-lipped smile. “From the time Maestro Norvello led you into my classroom at the
conservatorio
, all big eyes and homesickness, we have been closer than most brothers. I know I must content myself with that. When it comes to physical love, you and I are made differently.” He hung his head. “I’ve come to accept it. I’ve certainly had plenty of time to think about it in here.

“But before
Juno
opened, I wanted to believe that I still had a chance to make you love me. Blaming Adelina for capturing your affection was just a trick I played on myself, an excuse I used to delay facing the inevitable truth. When she laughed at me the day I stumbled over the spear and made such a fool of myself, I hated her more than ever. I started having a dream, the same one night after night. I was back in Naples, on the stage at San Remo. It was a very important performance. Even the Duke and his family were in attendance. When it was my turn to sing, only ugly croaks and screeches would come out of my mouth. Adelina was on the stage, too. She pointed at me and started laughing just like she did when I fell. The audience echoed her laughter. It seemed like those soprano giggles would never stop and she would go on ridiculing me forever.”

I knelt beside the narrow bed and crushed one of Felice’s hands in mine. “So you hated Adelina. I didn’t realize. Under the circumstances, I suppose I can understand your feelings…but you cannot give up, Felice. After all, you didn’t kill her. We’ve got to find out who put the poison in her wine decanter. Then we can get you out of here.”

Felice regarded me for a long moment, then said, very gently, “You don’t understand, Tito. I did it, I killed Adelina.”

My eyes flew wildly from Felice to Brother Mark. “No, no. It can’t be. It’s impossible.”

Felice resumed his pitiful position in the corner. I shook him by his shoulders and begged, “Tell me it isn’t so.” But my friend had gone mute and limp as a rag doll.

Brother Mark restrained me with firm hands. He hovered over Felice’s sagging body. “May I tell him?” he asked. Getting a shallow nod in return, the monk continued Felice’s story.

“Felice wanted to take Adelina down a peg or two. He thought if he could make her look ridiculous, you would cease to be infatuated with her. He recalled an incident from your student days when someone slipped you a substance that ruined your singing voice for the evening. He decided to try the same thing with Adelina.”

I nodded, barely believing what I was hearing. “Felice had a vial of belladonna that he was gargling for throat inflammation.”

Brother Mark continued, “Unfortunately, yes. He slipped up to the dressing rooms, ready with a pretext to account for his presence there. Finding Signora Belluna’s chamber empty, he poured a small amount of the noxious liquid in her wine decanter. He thought he’d gotten away with it until a maid walked in and surprised him.”

I groaned miserably. “How much, Felice? How much belladonna did you put in the decanter?”

“Just a few drops, five or six at most,” he answered in a ragged whisper. “I didn’t mean to kill her. I just wanted her to know how it felt to have her voice dissolve in front of hundreds of people.” He began to sob. “I didn’t want her to die. I didn’t mean to do it.”

I grasped his shoulder. “Pull yourself together, Felice. You couldn’t have killed her with that small amount.”

“But I did and now I’m going to die.” He stared at the opposite wall with empty, heavy-lidded eyes. “I don’t even care. It’s no more than I deserve.”

“You are wrong,” Brother Mark groaned in low, desperate tones. “Justice is never served by the execution of an innocent man.”

We had missed the footsteps coming down the hall, but the sound of iron rasping on iron brought us all to our feet. I had just enough time to shield my face and assume the manner of an apprentice cleric before the jailer was upon us.

“Surely you two have completed your business with this prisoner. You’ve been in here long enough,” he wheezed through a soup-dampened moustache.

Brother Mark leaned close to Felice and whispered in his ear. The jailer rattled the keys on his belt,and a suspicious look took possession of his heavy face. “I’ll set you on your way, Brothers. Your other devoted souls must be wondering where you are.”

I controlled myself until we rounded the outside corner of the guardhouse and were well out of sight of any curious
sbirri
. Then I gave vent to a litany of curses that would have seemed perfectly natural coming from one of Alessandro’s seamen but put my disguise as a Dominican monk in considerable jeopardy. Brother Mark tried in vain to shush me. He finally enclosed the back of my neck in his hand and marched me to an open square before the nearby church of San Giacomo. He sat me down on a stone bench and didn’t spare his disapproval.