Book of Stolen Tales (35 page)
Read Book of Stolen Tales Online
Authors: D J Mcintosh
It was manufactured at the Lohr Mirror Works, a German Renaissance-era company noted for their fine craftsmanship. The article described it as a talking mirror. In one corner, it bore the words
amour propre
, meaning “self-love.” The claim of a talking mirror had to be either a fable or an ingenious story hatched to enhance the object's appeal. Intriguing, nevertheless.
As I pulled out the English translation of Basile's anthology, intending to read it during the train trip, a folded paper dropped out. The one Dina gave me after we found Ewan in Gaiola. I'd transferred it from my jacket to the book and completely forgotten about it. Dina called it an eyewitness account of events in the lives of Basile and de Ribera. I looked it over. It appeared to be written nine years after Basile's death by the wife of a Scottish nobleman who'd once been stationed at the Spanish viceroy's court in Naples:
We have been settled in familiar surroundings at Edinburgh for nine years now and with age I have the luxury of time to look back on our adventures in Napoli, so I take up the pen. Word reached me that de Ribera is near to perishing. Would that blight visited upon us so many years ago have finally taken its toll on him? I hear that along with the sickness his fortune is lost. As the son of a shoemaker, he rose far above his station. Well, like returns to like, as they say
.
It is whispered he practiced the dark arts and hopes that knowledge will lead to his resurrection. His Holiness caught word of this and ordered the book to which he attributed the ritual be destroyed. I doubt the Lord will comply. He will hide it
.
Our year of tragedy began when Vesuvius erupted, spilling streams of liquid rock like hot blood down its slopes and blowing deadly ash onto the city. My husband and I barely survived, having narrowly escaped to a barge anchored in the harbor. I swear mightily the heat caused the seas to boil that night. Fish gasped on the surface of the water
.
Thus, I now believe that episode ushered in an even more perilous state of affairs, although it would be one year hence before we understood its consequence. It was as if the great force of the explosion had opened up Hades and released a demon into our midst. Certainly the fumes and smell of brimstone spoke of Hell's domain
.
After the eruption, those of us with means fled the ailing city for the countryside, which provided safety enough and good provisions but lacked the pleasant diversions we'd become accustomed to. It was for this reasonâto stir us from our boredomâthat the Lord threw a grand fete to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the birth of his daughter, Talia. The evening began as a splendid affair, although its outcome still causes me to quake. Pray, what miracle saved my husband and me from the scourge?
We arrived at dusk. Torches lit the garden, casting a warm glow and turning the reflecting pond to copper. The avenue of orange trees was in full bloom. We drank in their splendid perfume. Inside, all was opulence, from rich furnishings to statuary and portraits draped with garlands of ivy and wisteria. Bouquets of lush pink lilies filled the urns so completely they threatened to topple over. A quartet of musicians delighted us with their playing. Through the salon doors we could see tables piled high with sweetsâpignoccate, affile arranged on little silver traysâI could imagine the taste of the sweet jam spilling out from their centersâand Venetian glass jars filled to overflowing with colorful marzipan
.
I have always been a person of elevated perceptions and on that night, despite the celebration, I sensed some ominous undercurrent ruled the air. Looking back, I know it would have been too late to act on my suspicions even if I'd paid heed to my fears
.
Everyone dressed in their finery, the ladies' garments sporting the new higher waists and billowing sleeves cut to show their chemises, their décolletage so low it was a marvel the cloth covered their teats. How the ladies paused and shifted their eyes to the great mirror in the hall to preen like peacocks as they passed by. The sight of that mirror prompted my memory of a legend about that place, that the Lord possessed another mirror, not so grand as this, but one that was spellbound for it cast no reflection back except to a chosen few, and those, self-admirers. If such a thing existed I had never seen it and I suspected this to be idle talk
.
The Lord was stationed at the foot of the grand staircase to welcome his guests, his wife, poised and aloof, beside him. He said a few words of greeting but he was a distant, arrogant man and when he pressed my hand I felt no warmth
.
The Captain of the Lord's Guard had joined the party, watching the guests with his sharp eyes. He had a reputation for duplicity and even those beyond his reach were cautious around him
.
Two men stood not far from the Lord. The poet and raconteur Giambattista Basile, a short fellow with a strong mustache and soulful eyes. And the painter, de Ribera, his wig of coarse curly locks spilling over his shoulders. Two men who could not be more different. Basile with his remarkable sense of humor, fine wit, and brilliant turn of phrase easily kept us entertained for hours. A gallant little man with a soft heart whom the ladies adored and a gentleman of the highest moral rectitude. For it was said, even after Basile's long travails and finally gaining favor with the Duke of Acerenza who granted him the Governor's position, he refused the illicit spoils such an honor might gain him
.
De Ribera was of a saturnine disposition and some believed given to sorcery, although widely recognized as a great and gifted artist. The two men shared a common bond, a deep affection, some might call it adulation, for the Lord's young daughter. Both were well on in years and de Ribera married. In any event their station in life would never have permitted them to move their feelings beyond the realm of desire. But old men can dream as much as women are wont to do, I suppose
.
A bell chimed and despite its faintness everyone hushed for they knew what it portended. The crowd turned toward the stairs and looked up. The Lord stood a little straighter and smiled at his daughter, whom he favored above all others. I stole a glance at his wife. Much as she tried, she could not mask the bitterness in her face upon spying the delicate girl who'd just appeared at the head of the stairs
.
Talia wore a simple silk gown as suited her age. Her ebony locks were caught up with a garland of flowers. She descended the stairs, the image of grace and sweetness. Her father took her hand and brought her to the guests. His wife followed in their wake, but sourly. As she was his only child, her father had indulged her and she took part in activities that many whispered would spoil a young woman. And for all her innocence, the girl had a calculating side. Even at that tender age she was quite a skilled coquette who managed to persuade all to do her will. I am told she confessed once to her maid that she'd rather have been born a boy
.
The musicians struck up a tune and Talia gave us a song; her voice came through as clear and true as the bell that had summoned her into our presence. Soon the hour for gift-giving arrived. We retired to the salon for this purpose. She cried with pleasure as the Lord presented her with her very own white horse. A serving man held up a painting of the beast for all to admire. It was known the Lord favored the white Camargues and had a stable of them. Some felt the keeping of this breed to be a cruelty because their natural home lay in the French Rhone marsh
.
Lovely gifts from the guests followed and Talia was quite overcome with joy. De Ribera bowed deeply and offered a folio of his engravings. Murmurs circulated through the gathering; all were impressed with his generosity. Basile stepped forward holding in his hands a little cedar box. He opened the lid and asked her to look inside. A hush ran through the crowd as she lifted out gleaming black enamel and gold book covers inscribed with her initials. He helped her to undo the clasps. Inside lay five volumes, a printer's copy, containing many of the stories she loved
.
She thanked him profusely and began to turn away when he said there was something more. He lifted out of the bottom of the cedar box a most curious object, made of some dark stone, circular in shape with unusual markings on it. Her father's frown signaled his displeasure. It was an odd present indeed
.
Pray that lovely box had never been opened. But it is far too late for such misgivings now
.
The account ended abruptly. It took me a few minutes to digest the enormity of what I'd read. Finally the origin of the bookâor galley, as this account provedâhad been laid bare. It showed Renwick's supposition about a link between a plague and Basile's book was justified. The author had written of a terrible blight and a ritual involving the book. I was getting closer to the truth of all these connections, although much remained to be sorted out. But what to make of the name Talia? Why did Renwick's photograph identify Dina as Talia, the girl who received Basile's galley as a birthday gift?
And where was Dina now? Her unpredictable and capricious nature wounded me once. I wondered again whether she simply changed her mind about meeting me on the train. I hoped so.
Her fear of Mancini seemed genuine. Why risk her life trying to recover the rest of the volumes? It made no sense. I rejected the idea she just wanted to make more money from them. Something much deeper than simple avarice drove her but she had withheld it from me.
In contrast, Mancini's goal was crystal clear. He wanted the entire book back because it contained a key leading to something of immense value to him. I was determined to make him pay for his violent actions and all the grief he'd rained down on us. If his secret lay within those pages, I intended to find it first.
I couldn't let go of the idea of necromancy and pondered again how it fit into the puzzle. On the surface, the grotesque notion of bringing back the dead to foretell the future seemed counterintuitive. But the concept had captured human imagination. My own brother's given nameâSamuelâwas associated with the most famous biblical tale of necromancy: Saul asked the Witch of Endor to summon the prophet Samuel back from the dead to predict the outcome of a battle. Many times I'd wished to see my brother again, to talk with him, feel the comfort of his presence. The hole his death left in my life had never been filled and it lingered on. These questions and feelings absorbed me until the train pulled into Napoli Centrale.
Thirty-Six
November 28, 2003
Naples, Italy
N
aso's bookstore was located off Piazza Dante. The giant statue of the poet stood at the piazza's center, towering over the crowd, one arm extended as if emphasizing a point in the middle of a speech. Naples, with its smoldering volcanoes and grand literary traditions, seemed a far more appropriate home for Dante than Florence, I thought.
People milled around, enjoying the evening. I bought one of the piping hot pizzas you find everywhere in Naples, small enough to hold in your hand, filled with buffalo mozzarella and sweet tomato sauce. I'd skipped the introduction to the English translation Norris lent me and sat on a bench to leaf through it now. My eyes lit on a short but startling paragraph, written by a chronicler of events in Naples around the time Basile died:
For the scourges of the conflagration [meaning the eruption of Vesuvius] were scarcely extinguished, when the just God, perceiving that they [the Neapolitans] were not yet repentant, sent another kind of chastisement, a disease ⦠which proved so cruel and contagious that it appeared to be the plague and carried off numbers of people in a short space of time. Among these were many notable people; and they went on dying day by day and of those who perished [was] ⦠Giovan Battista Basile.
It was a harsh judgment on the poor souls of the city who'd suffered the twin catastrophes of the eruption and sickness and unfair to the people of warm-blooded Naples. It did, however, corroborate the Scottish noblewoman's record. Two eyewitness accounts now confirmed what Katharina originally told me about Basile's fate.
At seven that evening I slung my knapsack over my shoulder and walked through a passageway to the booksellers' alley to search for Naso's shop. A battered blue door marked the entrance. The sign swinging over it read Publius Ovidius NasoâLibri. The head and shoulders of a Roman, a classic olive wreath circling his brow, were painted below the name. I smiled at Naso's wit when I recognized the proper name of Ovid, ancient Rome's greatest poet.
A stencil of a pointing finger and the word Libri directed me up a flight of stairs, where I found an open door. Had I the leisure, I'd have spent hours in Naso's quaint shop combing through the old books. Shakespeare and Company was one of my favorite haunts in Paris and Naso's place reminded me of it. Books were tucked into every nook and cranny, in stacks, in piles, weighing down bookcases so the wooden shelves bent like branches of trees heavy with fruit. A maze of rooms invited exploration. A comfortable chair or two beckoned. Ornate glass lamps gave the shop a Victorian feel.